Apple has apparently included a blacklisting mechanism in iPhone OS 2.x through which the device can phone home, check for unauthorized applications, and disable them. The OS includes a URL that points to a page containing a list of unauthorized applications, specifically those listed here.

According to Jonathan Zdziarski, author of the book iPhone Open Application Development and an iPhone forensics manual:

This suggests that the iPhone calls home once in a while to find out what applications it should turn off. At the moment, no apps have been blacklisted, but by all appearances, this has been added to disable applications that the user has already downloaded and paid for, if Apple so chooses to shut them down.

I discovered this doing a forensic examination of an iPhone 3G. It appears to be tucked away in a configuration file deep inside CoreLocation.

If true, this really goes beyond being simple anti-choice and into some weird authoritarian realm. Why shouldn’t a consumer be allowed to modify a product he paid for?

Apple = Microsoft with better UI

COOLER HEADS PREVAIL: CNET follows up with some legitimate reasons for a kill-switch.

Done. The screen is cracked pretty badly and Apple will charge me quite a bit to replace it but the phone works great.

So here’s the outcome of the AT&T customer service: I walked into my local AT&T store this afternoon (after the iPhone rush) and told the rep I wanted to hook up a used iPhone I’d just purchased from a friend. He told me all I needed to do was drop a blank SIM card into the phone, attach it to my Mac, fire up iTunes and iTunes would guide me through the setup. He handed me the blank SIM card.

I’ve never been an iTunes user but I opened it with the phone connected. iTunes prompted me to create a new account, asked me information about my AT&T account and walked me through the setup very easily. Now I’m waiting for the iPhone to update to the 2.0 software. Supposedly, the phone will let me know when it is active and working though I’ve already received an email telling me that “AT&T has successfully activated your iPhone service.”

So, for all the annoyance of Wednesday’s encounter with AT&T, today worked like a charm. So far. If the phone doesn’t work soon, I will change my tune since my old phone is already kaput.

Yesterday, worried that there would be some hitch when I tried to renew a contract with an out-of-state number, I went into the store again and spoke to a different rep. He told me that because I wasn’t yet eligible for an upgrade, the store couldn’t sell me a phone at the discounted price even if I re-signed my contract. He suggested that I call AT&T’s 800 number and ask a rep there to change my account to allow for an upgrade. That way, I could upgrade in the store with no problem.

Last night, I called AT&T’s 800 number (1-800-331-0500 — which you can find in a brief 4 clicks from AT&T’s home page). The woman who answered informed me that I was not eligible for an upgrade and that I wouldn’t be able to get the iPhone for the discounted price. Then she scolded me about my past due balance and emphasized that I wouldn’t be able to upgrade anyway unless I paid my balance. I told her I was aware of the balance but I didn’t like the tone she took as though the call had changed from me asking what I thought was a simple question to a debt collection call.

I told her that it was my understanding from what I was told in the store originally that as long as I renewed my contract for 2 years, I would receive the discount. She put me on hold to ask a supervisor.

When she returned, she told me that I should just show up at the store on Friday and see if they could give me the discount. She didn’t know if I could. I was confused as to what to say. Surely she didn’t think I’d stand in line just to see if I could buy a phone at discount? I told her that it was my hope that I’d get some official word from her. She said she didn’t know and encouraged me again to go to my local store and see what would happen.

THEN — this is where it went from a merely dissatisfying trip down customer service lane to a full-blown annoyance — she asked me (as they do when they sign off) if I would say she had answered my questions satisfactorily. I repeated the question to her to make sure that’s what she said because I was ready with a hearty “hell no.” She confirmed and I said “Absolutely not. I called to get a definitive answer and you couldn’t give me one.”

And then it got classic, she argued with me as if the fact that she couldn’t give me an answer shouldn’t affect whether I was satisfied or not. I couldn’t believe it.

If it’s the policy of AT&T that customers who aren’t eligible for upgrades can’t get the discount, then so be it. But they could get all of their employees on the same page. Furthermore, as I explained to the woman last night, I don’t understand why AT&T wouldn’t encourage existing customers to extend their service plans rather than pay more for the hardware. None of this makes any sense to me.

UPDATE: I’ll note two things. One, the guys at the AT&T store seemed great. I just got conflicting information. But neither had the attitude that the 800 number lady did. And two, the woman on the phone was right. Current AT&T customers who are not eligible for an upgrade cannot purchase the phone for $199. To be eligible, one must have less than 6 months left on his contract. That is, seemingly, customers who purchased the iPhone last year and wish to get the new one, must buy one at full price.

Unfortunately, this is not my first run-in with AT&T’s moronic customer service. The outcome of that story is that AT&T ended up bricking the GoPhone I had bought because of some technicality that prevents a customer from buying a GoPhone to run on an existing plan.

But I realize the big deal to me is choice. I don’t want to be locked down. I don’t run iTunes on my iPod and I don’t even run Mac’s OS on my Mac. I like variety. I like choice. I think it was Reason’s Nick Gillespie who said (probably in much better language), “Freedom means being able to opt out.”

With Apple, opting out is always difficult. But I do. And I will again. Because I’m planning on buying the iPhone. After all, no one else is offering the internet on a mobile device like they are. But the minute the Google Phone appears with its open source operating system, I’ll jump ship. I’ll leave AT&T and Apple and sure there will be a penalty to pay. But getting a customer to pay a one time penalty for breaking a contract isn’t exactly good business. Good business is giving the customer choice.

On second thought, maybe I’ll just buy the OpenMoko.

UPDATE: And now this news, new OpenMoko on sale July 4th.