Geohot threatens to buy a Windows phone

January 19, 2011 | By Surur

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Microsoft treats hackers better.

Tired of being bullied by Sony with lawsuits and by Apple asking for jailbreaking to be made illegal, Geohot, the famous iPhone hacker, has suggested Microsoft’s more humane treatment of jailbreakers may be more to his liking.

Writing on his website he says:

perhaps a more appropriate way to deal with jailbreakers
I’m going out to buy a Windows 7 phone

Jump in Geohot, the water is warm, just don’t break anything!

Update: It seems Microsoft is just as welcoming, posting on his twitter account.

brandon

Via geohot.us.

Thanks Matt for the tip.

16

About Surur

Site Admin and Windows Phone enthusiast, he has been using Windows Mobile devices since before they were called PocketPC’s. He is currently sporting a HTC 7 Trophy.

Tagged jailbreak, windows phone 7

http://www.facebook.com/helseth Arne Helseth

Brandon Watson tweeted a few hours ago "#geohot if you want to build cool stuff on #wp7, send me email and the team will give you a phone – let dev creativity flourish #wp7dev".

I guess Microsoft didn't get the memo – you're supposed to sue the shirt of these people, not embrace them..

syrinx

Maybe doing something different will work this time.

http://twitter.com/chmun77 @chmun77

Hoping to see jailbreaking on WP7 soon…..
that1guyty

This makes me all warm and fuzzy inside!
Brianna

I don't mind as long as I don't start seeing pirated apps everywhere.

nuke1

Jailbreak = pirated apps. Make no mistake.

To perhaps 1% of the jailbreaking population, it does not. I don't know why people conveniently choose to ignore what jailbreaking means to most people.

jimski

Well if Microsoft has people like Geohot working for the good guys, then just maybe they can control this thing and bring some real hurt down on the violators of the sacred rule. Have fun, just don't pirate.
http://www.facebook.com/franz.cruz Franz Josef Cruz

I've always thought (as well as most of my mates) jailbreaking was to unlock the device so that more features that aren't available right out of the box, are presented to you, in the iPhones case prior to iPhone4, was tethering, multitasking, UI customisations etc.
I think Microsoft knows WP7 handsets are missing these features as why they're ok with consumers choosing to 'jailbreak' their own devices. They made it clear that they're supporting homebrew apps and are against pirated/IP infringing apps, and they have experience and knowledge with Winmo6.5 and earlier, how a hacking community can thrive (e.g. XDA where M$ stated that they can't live with them, but can't live without them either). I think M$ knows that it is OUR devices anway, and in the end, theyre just unofficially going to support consumers having access to apps that have been rejected to be in the marketplace, not pirated ones that ARE available.
Nevertheless, this openess to the 'jailbreak' community is really helping M$' image.
http://www.facebook.com/helseth Arne Helseth

I doubt that very much.

You see, the majority of people pirating material do it for one of two reasons;
a) the item in question carries too high a price tag, such as a BluRay for $35 which will entertain you for a couple hours or
b) It's more convenient to pirate than go out and buy retail, examples would be computer games with monumentally failed copy protection schemes.

Now, looking at any given smartphone app or game the two "tests" above fail. Firstly, the price is not an issue, if you can afford a smartphone for hundreds of dollars you can afford to buy an app for $2 or a game for $5 no problem. Also, it's way more convenient to use the marketplace to purchase and auto-install an app than it is to jailbreak your phone, traverse the intergoogle to find the app you want, download to your computer and finally install it on your phone – only to have to redo this again a week from now when there's been an update.

David Macke

I believe your analysis is a little flawed. While each app may cost around $2 and a game around $5 most people don't have just one game. When I used to have an iPhone I had around 30 games on my phone (yes I realize this is quite extreme and yes they were pirated) and if each game had been purchased legally then it would have cost me around $150 not to mention other apps I had that were not games. I would be willing to bet that after paying a pretty penny for a phone many people don't have enough money or don't find it worth while to pay $5 for a game. I believe apps need to be made cheaper (games in the $1-$2 range). This may help reduce pirating. Granted it will always be there but probably in smaller quantities.

Just my opinion

http://www.facebook.com/helseth Arne Helseth

The thing is, you buy apps/games on impulse. They are priced so you can buy them on impulse. That's the entire driving force behind the industry.

Most people don't think twice about buying a fun app for a couple bucks, just like they don't think twice about buying that cup of coffee on their way to work or the cannoli after lunch. This is especially true for the majority of iPhone users, which in my experience also seems to be the target audience for WP7 devices.

Yes, buying 30 games and 30 apps all at once would be expensive, but spread out, even just over a month it would still be cheaper than that cup of coffee on your way to work. If this is the sort of money you worry about I very much doubt you can really afford that smartphone in the first place.

The day we get an alternative WP7 marketplace with pirated apps/games for free, downloadable and installable directly from your phone – that's the day piracy will be a problem. I very much doubt that day will ever arrive though.

I do agree though – the WP7 marketplace feels more expensive than it's iOS counterpart.
Peter

It all depends on the quality of the game. There are some games, like infinity blade, and rage, which deserve their price tags (I think it was about $9 for infinity blade when I purchased it).

When you have a game with that much time, effort, research, and development in the market place, they deserve a little revenue.

Another bejewelled clone? As far as I'm concerned, that should be free….

The problem lies in distinguishing the apps that are worth it, from the apps that are not. I think if apple introduced the trial system that android has, with the ability to get the money back if the product turns out to be shit, then more people would be willing to fork out money for things they use.

Unfortunately, at the moment, they're profiting from people buying things they DON'T use, and losing revenue on people who are getting what they DO use…

eyefone

Helseth, you should google something called Installous. Your comment is way off base

rsg

Excellent move. They do have the right approach a lot of the time, when they others screw up!
Jchavez

they should do a wp7 preware thing like for webos preware is like a good guys way to jailbreak no priated stuff at all, but there always going to be someone to fight or break the system…
eyecue

What is more concerning here is the SIZE of the T-Shirt they gave him.

Can you say XXXL-Jabba the Hut?

If this guy is around this size (and it is hard to tell), then not getting Diabetes and having a Heart Attack should really be his priority.

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