There are more people who detest Apple than there are fanboys and I was one of them. After I an iPhone for my birthday though I fell in love with their products and now much as I still dislike them as a company I have bought a more up-to-date iPhone and am even considering an iPad.
So why is an apple-sceptic now buying Apple devices? One reason and one reason only:
A jailbroken iPhone is a phenomenal device. Expensive, but just incredible.
BUT and this is a big BUT... an un-jailbroken Apple device is quite frankly a piece of junk. Expensive, sexy and well made junk, but nevertheless junk. Unusable, impractical, overly controlled suffocated junk. The few times I've had the misfortune of having to use my iPhone (2G, 3G or 3GS and on a variety of OSs) without a jailbreak has taught me that was it not for jailbreak - no matter what the OS - I'd steer WELL clear of anything Apple.
JB Apple device > Android device >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> un-JB Apple device
It is a fact that a significant proportion of Apple customers only go Apple because of this option. Bigger userbase means more interest by App developers. More developers means more Apps. More apps (combined with awesome but expensive hardware) makes Apple the best so far.
The moment Apple wins their open war against jailbreaking is the moment Apple will have made the biggest mistake in their history. Customers (like me) will leave in droves as we're just waiting poised for the moment that the Android app market out-does the Apple app market.
Apple don't know how lucky they are that they haven't been able to beat JB yet.
No number of tweaks in the OS will EVER stop JBing from happening as they will never ever be able to supply ALL the functions a JB device can do.
VERY well said.
I got my first iPhone 2G before it was even available in Aus. Well it was never available here. Then as iOS upgraded, the quality of the device downgraded. It got so slow I had to upgrade to a 3G. And recently when the iOS went past the limitations of the 3G I again had to upgrade to a iPhone4.
I have paid for a few apps thats why I'm sticking with the iPhone. BUT if I paid for none I would've gone to an Android device straight away. EVERYONE that I know who had an iPhone and switched to Android will NEVER go back as its such a locked up device. Yea, it does look good and it works well when the OS lets it but when its not jailbreaked its worse than the cheap $50 phone. At least the $50 phone can connect via bluetooth and send MMS where the iPhone 2G couldn't do anything like that unless you jailbreak it.
I do own a iPad. It's also a great device when you jailbreak. If you do a chart of reasons to jailbreak and not there are so many more reasons to jailbreak.
I for one wont upgrade unless there is a jailbreak available for it.
I did have dev access and tried iOS5 on the iPad. It will be great when its jailbreakable. It's getting more jailbreak features but still not enough to not have it jailbroken.
A few jailbreak features that I have on the iPad. SMS/MMS, Speech recoginition, No lock screen, SSH Access. Those are features ONLY available via jailbreaking. If Apple put those features into the iOS then I might think about not jailbreaking... Think about it... but thats after I already jailbreaked it.
APPLE, WE ARE CUSTOMERS NOT CLONES. When will you realise this and give us the devices WE want?