Do You Prefer an iPhone or an iBrick? Jailbreaking Censorship.

Apple takes the topic of jailbreaking seriously. It's not about those boring terms of use or EULA - more and more often users seem to prefer their phones to remain safe and sound, while the vendor ensures that nobody feels encouraged to take that fatal step.

Apple Support Forums are full of references to jailbreaking, it's legality and impact. I recently came across a very popular issue where I could not connect to iTunes and a recurrning pop-up kept asking to try again. A hint about modifying DHCP settings to DNS of 8.8.8.8 seems to eventually have solved the issues, while others suggested steps as drastic as jailbreaking. I noticed a recommendation about that and added (what I thought at the moment was) a neutralizing reply to that iPhone hacker. I just didn't feel right leaving obscure and extreme statements like that on publicly available resources. 

<Edited by host> what used to be a suggestion to
 jailbreak your iPad or iPhone

That forum post flat out said that the only way to resolve that issue is to jailbreak your phone. 1 or two days later, something interesting happened. That post didn't include any foul language or inappropriate imagery. Today, in place of that comment, we see a cryptic text that reads <Edited by Host> . 

In forum terms, that could possibly equate to administrative moderation. But I think it's more than just simple moderation. It's 'white glove' 21st century censorship. As negative as that description may sound, I think the host's behaviour belongs on that forum for the following 3 reasons:

1. There really are better ways to address a pop-up message - multiple forums, blog posts and comments suggest a wide variety of tips and tricks, and risk of negative impact of jailbreaking far outweighs the possibility of benefits
2. The more jailbroken devices users circulate, the harder it is to build reliable apps that span both fully-functional and tinkered-with smarthphones, and the harder it is to maintain a stable mobile environment for all of us. That is exactly what killed an innovative mobile operating system called Windows Mobile 5 and 6 (as recently as in 2007).  But does anybody even remember that system? Given the power of mobile devices 6 years ago (approx. 20 times slower), out of the box that Microsoft mobile system worked like a charm even on the worst cellular coverage on my Samsung BlackJack II. Once people started leaving unorganbized content behind on the hard drive, attempting to impose their onw way of file and folder structure, performance and usability took a nose dive
3. Do you prefer an iPhone or an iBrick? - as one of the Apple forum participans puts it in his/her comment, more often than not, jailbreaking leaves you with a broken device and no way back. During the days of Windows Mobile 6, users had a way of totally restoring an OS while getting full support from Microsoft and a wealth of online help articles. Apple won't help if you jailbreak your iDevice

Now we all know that Apple's position is solid on that topic. They don't mess around - they'll 'erase your thoughts' if you recommend jailbreaking. I wonder what others think about other aspects of jailbreaking: ethics, piracy, safety, etc.

"Can't connect to iTunes Store" toothache

As a jolly owner of iPad 2 I proudly say I use that device for a lot of things. It saves paper, time and is a tremendous shortcut to world of technology online. Recent update to iOS6 was supposed to make it even faster, easier, more productive and not ask me for my Apple ID every time I want to install stuff. Hmmm, I mean that's great, but did anybody ask for that feature? Wouldn't we prefer to be able to display Flash sites or be able to use Silverlight web applications. They're still here to stay, longer than the latest release of Apple's tablet.

Nonetheless, changes related to Apple ID came about, some devices got the Passbook, some didn't. Sometimes it helps, sometimes that Passbook app gets in a way. I must admit I wasted a good bit of time trying to implement a recommendation from an Apple Forum just to later find out, as Dillon suggests in his reply, that Passbook is not available for my iPad (http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/65991/where-is-passbook-for-the-ipad).

So experts  recommend that I work with Passbook to resolve my inability to update apps and buy music from iTunes, while that app is just nowhere to be found on my device. Well, are they experts really? Someone else out there has a wild thought of messing with DHCP setting of my WiFi connection. For those who really desire to geek themselves out, please feel free to read up about DHCP on TechNet (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc781008(v=ws.10).aspx) - I would like to proceed to the bottom of solution to connectivity issues to iTunes.

Settings > Wi-Fi > (pick your network) > DHCP > Type 8.8.8.8 in DNS section.

As weird and unexplained it sounds, it worked. Why 8.8.8.8? What if 8 is my unlucky number? Why did the Quality Assurance team at Apple favored that silly DNS address over my actual DNS address given by my ISP (Internet Service Provider). I don't think we'll find out. The most important thing is that suggestions from a Level 0 newbie on Apple forum, Mrs Iris Terava solved a showstopper in an iPad 2 with iOS6 (https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2474718?start=180&tstart=0).

Thank you Mrs Iris!

To me that's a massive oversight on Apple's end, or was it? What if we speculate a little bit for a moment ... what if iOS 6's pitfalls are just those subtle maneuvers of your dentist who is trying to improve the state of the inside of your mouth by poking at things and seeing how much pain you can actually take. If you moan, he'll say "sorry" and won't pull that move on you again or will increase the dosage of your pain killer. If you play a tough guy during the current visit and not even once signal discomfort, next time will he not numb your gums at all before he starts fixing a cavity? That's extreme and nasty - I know, but what if Apple is testing us to see how much abuse we are willing to take and still camp outside the fancy glass store in New York City to get that new iPhone 6 or 7 and how much more will we be willing to pay for lower and lower quality, less and less helpful apps with more and more imposed feature set/design as well as increased number of issues in public alpha releases.