Want to bring down a whole network of cellphones? - there's an app for that.
- i like that...
i agree with all that apple are rather restrictive in their practices. but we must remember that while we buy the hardware (albeit subsidised through the networks), we do not buy the software, we simply buy a license to run the software.
This is similar to other forms of media, if you buy a book, you cannot there-after simply alter the wordings of a few paragraphs then re-release it as your own works. The same as you could not copy chunks of a dvd movie and incorporate them into a movie of your own and release it.. In the same way, you cannot modify the software on a device then release it as your own for other people to use.
Thats the issue at point here, and apple will win this one everytime.
If somebody created an entirely new operating system that happened to run on the apple hardware then that might be a different game and it would stand a chance of succeeding, but all people are doing is "altering" apples software which is and should always be illegal just as it is with other forms of media.