wtf, please! please! please tell me someone understands the iPhone/iPod Touch Firmware has a recovery mode activated when attached to a computer with iTunes running while holding down the home button till the iTunes icon and cable icons appear on screen instead of booting.

THIS IS HOW YOU RESTORE IPHONES AND IPODS TOUCHES THE EASY WAY.

My friends iPod Touch was getting the BSD major 2, minor 2, minor 0 (can’t remember exact error name) issue after using Ziphone, worked to restore it like that like a charm.

I’m more concerned about the 3rd party software sucking up processor power and RAM like a black hole than bricking my friends iPod Touch.

I call FUD.

I find the hole bricking concept offensive. It shouldn’t be possible, just like bricking your laptop is not possible. (Perhaps it’s possible, but do you ever hear about it? It’s not something anyone talks about, because the occurance of it so low. There are no warnings about installing 3rd party OSs, and there are tons of them.)

My Nokie E61 was bricked by Nokia’s own software. It has nothing to do with third-party extensions.

It’s a crass engineering shortcut, on some phones, and now it’s being used as FUD against using your iPhone anyway you like. It’s a bug that you are being ‘warned’ about! How ridiculous.

I’m not surprised that the so called “genius” couldn’t unbrick the phone. The hackers are way more adept at that. Point is, if you user hacker tools to unlock then be prepared to use said tools to unbrick rather than sending mommy back to Apple.

My jailbroken iPhone is INFINITELY more usable – streaming audio, IM, location based Twitter with pics, notepad, solitaire on flights, etc. I highly recommend it.

Most grief I’ve read about is not related to jailbraking, it’s related to phone/SIM unlocking. Regardless, I expect solutions to most issues can be found on the web. Probably where the kid figured out how to tamper with it to begin with.

I think Travis touched on the real problem;

This woman entrusted a 15 year old – someone who is generally not permitted to make many contractual decisions – with a device that can be crashed through “I want” decisions that have real contractual ramifications.

Either she and others come to understand this and decide to permit/not permit a kid – her own in this case – to do so or she and others will remain clueless contributors to poor customer relations.

Of course Apple isn’t going to fix it… but regardless, what was the Mac Genius using to restore it? Ziphone? Independence? I’ve talked to plenty of people that have said they’ve completely restored their iphones from jailbreaks and even unlocks. Maybe it wasn’t restore-able through Apple’s standard iTunes restore, but the same apps that handle the jailbreak and unlock ca do a restore.

I’d say the story is incomplete, meaningless or at least misleading.

Apple also doesn’t take responsibility if you’ve crashed your MBP because you’ve installed a haxie (and nor should Apple). The point is that you’re free to use whatever device you’ve bought how ever you want. But if you use it in an unsupported manner, you shouldn’t expect support when you break it. This is true whether we’re talking about iPhone, MBPs, or any sort of Windows based device.

This is kind of silly. The iPhone is a closed system (for at least a couple more weeks) an appliance if you will. This is no different than when you purchase a DVD player, game console, or television. I mean do you really think that Tivo should support people that hack their DVRs? If you hack something be prepared for the worst.

Ricky, but they (Apple) don’t go out of their way to prevent people from developing, selling/giving away and installing software on their Macs. My point isn’t really that Apple isn’t supporting device problems caused by 3rd party software (no hardware/OS vendor does that for free… and obviously can’t), but rather that Apple’s iPhone is a closed system, unlike their computers. Why do people put up with that?

Just imagine if it was Apple’s official stance that they wouldn’t work on “modified” MBPs, Oliver… meaning non-Apple software installed.

Pretty easy to imagine with what they do with the iPhone, really.

Why do parents buy their kids such expensive toys?

Just imagine if your MBP was a closed device like the iPhone and you had to jailbreak it to install software not blessed by Apple, or to use it with a WiFi router not sold by Apple…

I have returned my phone to factory spec after the last jailbreak caused some phone issues for me. I was never sure if it was the last firmware or the jailbreaking that caused the lockup problems I used to have.

I figure I will wait to see what “official” apps are realeased before going the jailbreaking route again.

A quick google search and reading of forums would resolve this quite easily, if you are prepared to spend a bit of time to understand how it all works then you can avoid these problems easily and enjoy the benefits that jailbreaking gives you.