Sideshow comment:
Even after all these years, BlackBerries have not been successful (publicly-known) hacks at the operating system level. There is still no publicly known way to install an unrestricted+unsigned JDE application on a real BlackBerry, one able to modify operating system files or other serious damage. When one attempts to hack a BlackBerry (by javaloader-modifying operating system files, etc), an ERROR 507 or other error screen occurs on bootup and you're forced to wipe and reinstall the OS... It's not even possible (at the moment) to install another OS, such as Linux, on a BlackBerry hardware device either...
I am impressed that it has been this long -- and no successful low-level software hack in the open to BlackBerry even today. Of course, some people have already written semi-malware for BlackBerry or maybe even managed to get them signed, but are still heavily sandboxed from the operating system, and even so, are so easily blocked by BlackBerry Enterprise Server. It may be a matter of time, but RIM is several years ahead of the hackers, and hopefully will try to keep this lead before the hackers catch up to BlackBerry as BlackBerry is still becoming more and more popular...
BlackBerry has been an unattractive and extremely difficult hacker target, and I like it just this way.
I am pretty interested to find out how secure Apple will make iPhone come February 2008 with the new developer SDK. One would think that if the API's are good enough, software vendors would stick only to them, and that most people won't bother doing undocumented hacks and would be less likely to run into 'erratic' behaviour such as this. On the other hand, there will still always be hackers then, too.
P.S. Let's be fair to the iPhone - it does have some rather cool innovations, such as the pinch-zoom, something I would hope RIM borrows (Because there are a lot of rumors RIM is being forced to introduce a touchscreen product in some of the 9000 series models next year). So far, I generally dislike touchscreens, but if I must use a touchcreen, then take the best from iPhone instead of Windows Mobile or Palm. I would hope RIM keeps all the features we have, such as copy and paste, and make the touchscreen optional - i.e. being able to do everything by a trackball or other means.
Last edited by Mark Rejhon; 11-01-2007 at 09:08 PM..
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