I don't have an iPhone. But, nonetheless I don't want an app to steal my personal info.

I am not okay with this whatsoever. I'm dealing with the fact that they didn't give me the freedom to use opensource applications...for now. I'm also dealing with the fact that they cut out the possibility for me to tether...for now... But this growing big brother crap Jobs is pulling is making me want to jailbreak this thing once and for all and stick it to Apple for playing games with me.

I count the days before the jailbreakers figure out how to stop the thing from phoning home...

Totally unacceptable, and the grudging respect I gave Apple for having a really decent customer service rep or two is shot to $#!+ now. Forget ever doing business with those creeps.

It could be good and it could be bad but being able to remotely kill a malicious app seems like it's better than bad.

I, too, don't want an app to steal my personal info. But I wouldn't want this sort of capability on my OS X or Windows XP computers, or my Symbian cell phone. There are other ways to protect against malware than ceding control to a large corporation.

Can't they just send out mass text messages that ohidunno, warn people they may have installed a malicious app? If it's on the phone, chances are the damage has already been done.

Apple has a long history of draconian control over their devices. Why are people surprised by this?

It was this extremely closed nature that turned me off the first-gen iPhone, and what continues to keep me away from them. Now that viable competitors are entering the market, why would I buy something that's more restrictive and costs more?

Still, people will continue to buy it, because so many are perfectly willing to cede almost complete control to our corporate overlords.

@Chris Walters: Agreed. I just bought a samsung instinct, and I'm waiting for the 3rd party apps to be developed. It would piss me off if samsung did this, but I have a feeling that the owning a instinct will pay off in the end.

Boo Apple. *hugging my Blackberry*

I'll choose a device that permits me to install all 3rd party plugins over fashion gadget any day.

Apple has some great marketing, to convince so many people to buy an overpriced gadget with worse-than-Microsoft protection software.

Imagine your computer would do it? People would have burned Microsoft building long time ago...

The other side to this might be seen, however, as: If Apple knew that there was this possibility/vulnerability and could have helped but didn't, they would have a far, far bigger problem on their hands. It's likely this is part of the trade-off for the application store where anyone can get something online before extensive testing.

The reality is that Apple won't "pull the lever" inappropriately knowing what kind of customer backlash would exist and how quickly word of it would be disseminated. The Consumerist and Gizmodo alone would run multiple articles to squawk people to attention.

It's one of the beauties or this place, it's hard for any company to get very far down a muddy road of customer alienation or private information safety before we all start yelling.

Honestly, if such a malicious app showed up and they WEREN'T able to kill it we'd give them hell.

Does this surprise anyone?

Apple stopped selling hardware a long time ago - all they sell now are contracts.

Btw- went on a 4hour drive to Chicago and back yesterday, and I must say the navigation on it is impressive. I was thinking it was going to be crappy, just good enough to get away with calling it a navigational system, but it really blew me away. One button, then I say (for example) "pizza" it reconizes my voice and what I said (without training it first) pulls up a search of nearby pizza places (which I can arrange by distance, rating, etc) push on the one I want, and it pulls up the phone #, adress, ratings and such, and I can choose to get driving directions from where I'm at, or just view it on a map.

It also calculates your trips miles, and tells you the eta. the eta was impressive, based on stops and traffic, it will recalculate it every so often. It told me where the traffic was, and where to go to get around it. You can also just get the directions instead of the 3D gps thingy. And I did all that without reading the manual so it's super easy to use all those features.

Does anyone know if samsung has a similar "kill switch"?

I don't understand why this is news? We've known for months that the apps would have DRM attached to them. Apple's "Fair"play DRM (like nearly all DRM) has the ability to de-authorize content by simply invalidating the certificate.

This is the same DRM used by the iTunes store. Everyone knows that Apple could render your music unusable in the same fashion... right?

I really don't understand why this is suddenly a story. This is very old news that apparently took years for anyone to actually pay attention.

if you find you are upset about not having control over content you paid for, you should strive to learn more about DRM in general. There is a large movement to get companies to reconsider the DRM they attach to their music/movies/TV/applications/books and other media.

Isn't this almost exactly like a "security update" from Microsoft, or their Malicious software removal tool? It's pretty much just Apple's own antivirus. It doesn't shut down the phone, just prevents something harmful from running.

@Cocotte: Why? We'd remove the app ourselves. Don't need Big Brother Steve to babysit me.

I will not be purchasing an iPhone, though not for this reason specifically.

Why not. People let Apple get away with everything else..

This isn't news. Apple has from the beginning stated that they would not permit apps which would compromise phones or the network. Effectively, this gives them the ability to retract apps that prove to be a problem.

The Blackberry solution is to enable a "firewall" for all the apps. YOU as the user can determine just what an app is allowed to do, who it is allowed to call, and what it is allowed to interact with. It's a nice and clean solution, and doesn't put Apple in charge of your device.

Here is what I think would be a better solution that would keep the Great Steve from being able to directly control what apps we put on our iPhone/iPod Touch. When an app shows up in the blacklist, temporally disable the app while warning them of what mischief it will cause. Then give them the option of restoring the app. This way Apple can't disable an app just because they don't like it.

@hardtoremember:

It could be good and it could be bad but being able to remotely kill a malicious app seems like it's better than bad.

You would think that, like a hacker is going "care" he stole your personal info off the iphone. Yea I hear the "caring" over here a plenty!

If Apple products are so safe and secure like everyone believes then why would such a switch even be needed?

Some people are getting a little too paranoid. Apple explained why the functionality was there and it's there for the user, not Apple. I think it's perfectly reasonable for them to have the functionality to remotely disable something they discover to be malicious. People would complain if it got onto the app store and Apple DIDN'T do something about it. There's a small section of the population that'll never be happy with anything.

@shufflemoomin: Small section nothing, It's more like a small section of people who are happy.

So they aren't going to use it to disable the 8 people who currently own the "I Am Rich" program?

Is this really surprising to anyone? I'm sure they are well-covered by their EULA on this. If you don't like this, don't buy the iPhone. Apple has a right to produce a product how they see fit. If they think that a closed application framework is the best solution, let the market decide (and I'm pretty sure that it has).

Why do we need to "stick" it to Apple because they produced their product the way that they did? If you don't like the product, don't purchase it. If you purchase the product, then you purchase it as it is made.

Me personally, I'm holding out for an Android phone because I want to control what I put on the phone. Oh, and AT&T sucks.

It seems like almost everyone would be satisfied if the kill switch existed, but you could opt out of being subject to it.

@Dobernala: Unless the ap prevents you from removing itself. It's been known to happen.

@TheSpatulaOfLove: You say "dealing with" like it's some horrendous restriction imposed on you without your consent - didn't you know going in about the open source?

This is nothing more than a safety net for when Apple accidentally lets through an "I Am Rich" application that does more than make lots of money for Apple and even more for another guy.It looks like their review process could do with a little review itself.

@shufflemoomin: The possibility exists for Apple to use it however they want as well. Just because they say one thing doesn't make it true.

@david_consumerist: ...huh?

How does this effect jailbroken iPhones? Can Apple opt to kill the jailbreak via this kill switch? Can they kill-switch any known application(s) that can only run on jailbroken phones?

IF they start pulling unofficial apps because they don't like it, or AT&T doesn't like it, then I'd be pissed. IF they use it like they should be used, i.e. against a worm that wipes out your phone and bricks it, I'd be glad they put it in. At the end of the day, would I rather lose a couple apps than all my data? You bet your ass.

Steve, you know what the right thing to do is. This power is a duty to not piss off your customer base, many of whom are early adopters, cutting edge, and open-source minded. This really REALLY NEEDS to be a "break glass in case of emergency" option and not a button wired to your desk, which you yawn and press whenever AT&T comes knocking.

At the Open Source conference in Portland a few weeks back I saw lots of Macs and iPhones, but the same people were ranting and raving about how "controlling" Microsoft is. The moral of the story is that you're company can be assholes if the case looks nice. Take a hint Comcast, make your cable modems white and you'll be loved.

I just think that they believe all of their own apple users are idiots.

if i wanted a kill switch id buy one.

@shufflemoomin: "People would complain if it got onto the app store and Apple DIDN'T do something about it."

Why? Name another phone that does this, please. It just isn't expected.

Does anyone really believe this is going to stop a worm anyhow? By the time they would "hit the switch", it would be too late.

Well, let's see. If someone discovered an exploit in an app that could slowly seep my personal data out, and I happened to be asleep or something where I couldn't use my phone, or if it was unnoticable, I'd DEFINITELY want Apple to pull the killswitch on it, especially if it might be something like someone pulling off my credit card info.

However, the problem is trusting them to use it responsibly, and I trust them to be too busy coming up with something else to distract me from my daily life to just kill an app because they can. After all, they deleted the 'I am Rich' app, but didn't nuke it, right?

@gqcarrick: If they spend so much time reviewing and verifying apps and their updates, why would they need a killswitch?

The the naysayers here who seem to think that giving Apple control like this is only a bad thing:

Remember the $999.99 app from last week? If Apple was so trigger happy, why didn't they use the kill switch on this app? Or on the tethering app that they've allowed and removed twice from the app store?

I tend to believe Jobs when he says this is for emergencies; I don't think Apple would use the kill switch unless there was a chance of network interruption or a back door in some app crafted for malicious intent.

HA!

It's just that iphone fanbois just love their walled garden, while everybody else can have their adventure in the jungle of amazon. Take your pick - either follow the herd, just be another sheeple and let a corporate take control of what you can and can not do on your OWN phone, or, er, just enjoy the freedom of doing whatever you want to do with your OWN phone.

I say, Apple should continue doing things like this - at least its helping educating some of the sheeple about it.

Oh, come on people, you know better than this. The "kill" functionality is for their convenience, not yours. If it was for your convenience, they'd charge you extra for it.

@Bakkster_Man: Exactly. Mine and your reasoning are why I will never want an iphone.

@CaliforniaCajun: I agree. If a bad-App(le) got out there and they did use it, Apple would get praise. But because nothing has happened thus far, there is a bunch of griefing.

Think of this shit-storm Apple would be in if there was a bad-App and they couldn't control it?

@Bakkster_Man: maybe they do rudimentary checks on the apps and that's it? What if an App was genuinely designed to do something and get updates from a website, and then in an update became a bad-app?

Personally, as long as Apple stays to it's "incase of emergency, break glass" stance, I can't see too much of a problem with this.

Slippery slope.

iPhone -> Desktop

It's appropriate if you're for trusting your corporate overlords, or inappropriate if you don't trust them, or so I like to confuse myself.

I won't get really mad about remote kill switches until Apple launches the iCar in 2010. If that has a kill remote kill switch I'll be furious.

I would love to know when we stopped owning things we buy. I Love gadgets and tech toys but I prefer to won everything I buy. But I guess that's just me.

I don't mind it. For what I use my iPhone for, such a function can only be beneficial. And even if by chance, it gets triggered accidentally for a certain app, I don't care... The core functionality of the phone and the apps that come with it are what I use the most, the rest is just icing on the cake.

@gqcarrick:

And why do you think Apple products are safe? Hmm...