[wellylug] 5 reasons to avoid iPhone 3G - Free Software Foundation

[Bruce Hoult]

On Fri, Jul 11, 2008 at 7:58 PM, Adam Bogacki <afb at paradise.net.nz> wrote:
> Fyi,
>
> Adam Bogacki.
>
> http://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/5-reasons-to-avoid-iphone-3g/

> the 5 real reasons to avoid iPhone 3G:
>
> iPhone completely blocks free software. Developers must pay a tax to Apple,
> who becomes the sole authority over what can and can't be on everyone's phones.

False.  Anyone can pay $99 and join the developer program and compile
and put whatever software they like on their iPhones, whether they
write it themselves or get the source code or object libraries from
someone else.

This is about "free as in speech, not free as in beer", right?


> iPhone endorses and supports Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) technology.

True enough.  It will happily play non-DRM music and video, but not
apps at the moment :-(


> iPhone exposes your whereabouts and provides ways for others to track
> you without your knowledge.

Don't know details on that.  If it's what I'm thinking of, isn't that
a federal law in the USA now that phones must do that?


> iPhone won't play patent- and DRM-free formats like Ogg Vorbis and Theora.

That is as close as someone putting a player on the app store.  It's
dead easy to read files and to feed arbitrary samples into an
AudioQueue.


> iPhone is not the only option. There are better alternatives on the horizon
> that respect your freedom, don't spy on you, play free media formats, and
> let you use free software -- like the FreeRunner.

I look forward to them, hopefully this decade.  In the meantime...