It seems more and more these days the mac community is coming up with hacks and cracks for all our favorite apple toys. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Heck, it makes our toys more fun. However, when apple updates the firmware on those hacked/cracked toys, it tends to break them or repair them. So, should this upset us? I don’t think so. I for one can understand why these things happen, and I am sure any programmer out there understands this too.
But it seems like all I hear when this happens is crying. Boohoo, apple bricked my iPhone. Boohoo, Boxee does not work on my apple tv any more. Hello! When you hack/crack one of these devices you are re-writing the code or taking code out. Naturally when you update this is going to get fixed. Or if the code is removed it could brick the item. Recently the apple TV got an update. Many people have hacked their apple TVs, especially more recently with Boxee showing you how to do so. Well, the ATV update caused the Boxee hack to stop working. All around the world people started crying. I don’t understand why. When you decide that you are going to hack/crack something, you know this is a risk.
Let’s compare this with Tim Allen’s character from Home Improvement. Tim Taylor wants to ad more power to a tool. He does so. Then something goes horribly wrong. This can happen with your toys too! Windows users will play with the system registry – you modify something wrong, and you don’t have a working computer. Same if you are a command line user on a unix system. You don’t put something in that you should, or you type a step wrong, and no more workie for your toy! All I am getting to, is if you are going to play around with the system, don’t gripe when an update comes out and either fixes it or breaks it.
