Monday, August 31, 2009

Does Apple want your iPhone to stay dumb?

On an unexpected turn of hand, Apple has asked Bjango to take off their most powerful feature in iStat app for iPhone: Free Memory function, which allow users to free used up memory stored in RAM of their iPhone. Here's a quote from Bjango's website:

iStat’s Free Memory function was removed at Apple’s request.

We are very committed to ensuring iStat is the best iPhone and iPod Touch monitoring tool. Free Memory has been removed, but a lot of other useful features will be added in its place.

For you who didn't know yet, iStat is an app that allows you to see your iPhone’s stats for battery, memory, disk space, WiFi and Cell IP addresses, uptime & load averages, plus view and email your iPhone’s Unique ID and MAC address.

With the main star is now being pulled off from the center stage, Bjango had to lower the price of iStat from the normal price $2.99 to $1.99, and added some minor new features to temporarily fill in the empty slot.
But even Bjango informs iStat users who wish to keep the Free Memory function alive to keep running the v1.0, or if users have already updated iStat to v1.1 then it's possible to re-install the first version again.

But by keep using the iStat v1.0 means you'll never again able to click on the "Update All" again...
Talk about being smart, or being stupid? Which one do you want; update the app and feel the warm fuzzy feeling in your chest that you have the up to date version, or keep the important feature and go through the endless time on updating every apps installed within your iPhone one by one?

Actually to think of it, there's a good reason why Apple do this; when a user free used memory then it's possible there's certain important service that needed to run is being turned off and causing the iPhone to crash unexpectedly.

For instance is what happened everytime I stopped apps in my Trēo™ 750v using the memory management feature in Windows Mobile, it sometimes freeze up and I had to do a soft reset to fix it. This got me to think of Apple's policy to restrict multi-tasking in iPhone, could this is an attempt from Apple to create a more stable platform than the other crash-prone mobile platforms?

But by doing so, Apple has disabled the ability for users to have VIP access behind the velvet curtain of iPhone system. Users can't take full control over their own iPhone, nor allowed to see what's happening behind the scene, behind that glossy screen and curvy body contour of their iPhone. "It's just work," that is Apple's slogan for every and each of its products, Apple wants its users to believe that everything work by magic or there are Oompa Loompas in there churning up the gears..., and that's pretty much what the iPhone users can get.

But then what is the use of owning one of the most cutting-edge and savviest smartphones in the market, if you can't make the most of its prowess through the features provided by the apps?
Perhaps that's the way Apple want your iPhone to be, to stay dumb for good...
Oh wait, or is it you're the one that Apple wants to stay dumb...?
Darn, it beats the hell out of me to think of it... ~LOL~

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