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Paul Sweeting

Paul Sweeting is the editor of ContentAgenda.com and a columnist for Video Business. He has covered the home entertainment industries since 1985 for Billboard, Variety, Publishers Weekly and other leading business publications. He is based in Washington, DC.


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Paul Sweeting

Paul Sweeting, Media Wonk
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Apple's brick wall - September 28, 2007

Apparently, only Apple is allowed to play games with its relationship with AT&T.

Just weeks after Apple introduced the iPod touch--essentially an iPhone without the phone--for $200 less than an iPhone, the company appears to have made good on threats to disable hacked iPhones with a firmware update.

The update went out yesterday, and web sites and chat rooms filled with tales of iPhones turned into iBricks.

Both hackers and Apple now seem to be settling in for a long, grinding war of hacking and bricking.

The really unfortunate part, however, is the lesson Apple is likely to draw from the experience: better to stay in your walled garden than come out and play with the other kids.

Consumers were content enough to let Apple lock them into iPods. But when it comes to locking them into a relationship with someone else--in this case AT&T--they chafe.

Apple, too, is chafing from its relationship with AT&T. From the complaints about its slow network, to the awkward iPhone price cut to widespread hacking, working with AT&T has been nothing but a headache so far for Apple.

The real problem, of course, is that Apple is trying to maintain the same level of control it has inside its walled garden now that it's operating outside the walls. But if I had to guess, I'd say Apple's diagnosis of the problem will be that there are fewer headaches inside the walls.
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videoguy
September 28, 2007
Response to:
Apple's brick wall

As a consumer, I know that by purchasing an iPhone, I am entering into a contract with AT&T. As a consumer, I know that by hacking and unlocking my iPhone, I am voiding my warranty and that it may result in my iPhone turning into an iBrick. As a consumer, I have the choice to accept those terms or to select another phone and service provider, some of which offer their own exclusive phones. So why do you insist that Apple is somehow at fault here? As an iPhone user, the complaints about AT&T's slow network are nill. Most people are using its Wi-Fi capabilities anyway. What does AT&T have to do with the "awkward" price cut? Nothing. I'm still trying to figure out what your point is, exactly. Blaming Apple and/or AT&T because a small faction of consumers want to bend the rules hardly seems fair.