Four Palo Alto teenagers raised in the heart of Silicon Valley got the scare of their lives when they thought they might be banished from all Apple stores worldwide, for life.
Their crime, the teens said, was downloading a third-party car racing game onto iPhones at Apple’s University Avenue store in Palo Alto last weekend. For that, the two Palo Alto High School students and two recent graduates said they were detained 2 1/2 hours at the store and permanently banned by management.
“I can’t walk down University Avenue without going in there,” said Paly senior Daniel Fukuba, who camped out for the first iPhones last year. Fukuba, who works at a local start-up when not in school, said he and two friends – junior Eric Vicenti and Paly alum Noah Rogers – had some time to kill before meeting up with Paly alum Anjay Patel on Saturday, so they headed over to the Apple store. Showing off the capabilities of the iPhone to Vicenti, Fukuba downloaded a car racing game called “Raging Thunder” – a third-party application created by the Swedish company Polarbits – onto the store phone.
“We thought that it was completely harmless,” Vicenti said. When an employee stopped by and asked what they were doing, Fukuba told him they were “playing around with the phones.” Rogers, who said he worked for the Palo Alto Apple store during the holiday season, said employees are trained to restore the iPhones and computers each night so any downloaded applications would be erased before the next day. “All you have to do is plug it in a laptop to restore it to normal,” he said. The employee did not seem alarmed, but a few minutes later a manager came over and asked whether they needed help, Fukuba said. He replied that they were doing fine, and shortly after Patel arrived the group left the store. Patel said he had spent less than five minutes in the store, doing nothing but checking his Facebook page and barely chatting with his friends. “I may have said one or two words to them,” he said.
But the group had time to talk over the next 2 1/2 hours. “We’re halfway down the block when the manager comes running out and tells us to stop right there,”‘ Fukuba said. The students were ordered to return to the store, where a security guard and the manager called police, Vicenti said. Sgt. Sandra Brown confirmed that the store called the Palo Alto Police Department and an officer responded, but made no arrests. She said the store issued the teens an “admonishment” to leave the store, but police did not force them out. After being lectured by the manager on the dangers of “hacking” into the phones, the teens were photographed and told their pictures were being sent to all Apple stores “so they’d be on the lookout for us,” Rogers said.
Never, ever, cross an Apple store employee, lest ye too shall be banned for life.
Peedro – If it has been out waaaaaay before iPhone how come it isn’t doing waaaaaay better?
Seriously >>> http://tinyurl.com/2zxtrq
16-That’s the best you can do, clown? A picture of a fat guy? haha I think you are level 5 on the douchebag scale.
And I concur with the person above that says if you don’t want the phones played with in real world settings don’t put them on display where they can be used.
24-Let me see you held against your will in a retail store and see if you don’t experience some mental anguish. I suppose if you took off your apple colored glasses you’d see what us here in real world call ‘reality’.
You appleheads are out of your minds. Oh wait, that’s why you use apple products.
[edit: comments guide]
[Aaaah, you went and did it again Ketchup. – ed.]
The horror , the horror, the horror of it all
The perils of “open source” Apple
Seem to be a few control issues here – or what Apple cannot control or even buy insurance against
#34 Um Brian, I wasn’t talking about computers. I was just seeing if you knew what the word duress actually means.
What a bunch of compliant sheep Americans are, they should told the Manager to stick where the sun doesn’t shine. There’s nothing in the laws that give him the right to hold them, unless he thought they had shoplifted, and in that case he should of called the cops.
They should get a lawyer and sue Apple and the Manager. People have a wrong and stupid idea of what it’s legal for them to do, it really almost sounds like a case of kidnapping to me.
@32
I thought the same thing: Apple’s lawyers would never let their employees chase a ‘customer’ outside of the store.
It’s ridiculous to think that these children would not be punished for defacing Apple property in an Apple store.
Well these people basically had to Jailbreak the iphone, which is fine if they want to do it for their iphone, but to do it to something that is property of an Apple store is something that they had no business doing.
MSH, you’re the epitome of the blind apple fanboy. Unable to grasp the concept of apple ever being wrong.
The iPhone is a nice toy, but it’s not a working person’s phone. When the iPhone can multitask then it can be considered more than a toy.
There’s all of one iPhone, how many phones run windows mobile again? Oh that’s right, a hell of a lot more than one. But the iPhone is better, right?
How about MMS? Copy/past? GPS? Multitasking? 3G internet?
There are MS phones that can do all of these things. Your blind hatred of all things MS and blind devotion to apple is making you look and talk like a tool.
37- Another blind and rabid apple fanboy. Hilarious. Go away, troll.
Now we should already know by now that Apple will never, ever, willingly allow 3rd party apps on their Iphones that were not purchased through Apple.
We have figured this out by now, haven’t we?
A little history here: The Ipod was designed from the first to be an extension of the Itunes store. If Apple could, they would only allow files downloaded from Itunes to play on the Ipod. As it stands, they try and limit what you can do outside of the Itunes store.
Now as for the Iphone, Apple gets to try again with a clean slate. Apple will fight to the death to be sure that only those apps purchased through Apple will run on the Iphone.
This is called Residual Income.
Hear this clearly. Apple is selling an entirely closed platform. Beginning to end. You can use and own only what Apple provides. No custom software allowed. You are not allowed to Think Different.
And, yes, this is where Windows based phones and pda’s have the advantage. Literally thousands of applications are available. Just about anything you could want! You can purchase them at very competitive prices, have all the advantages of a competitive marketplace, and if you cannot find what you want, then you can write it yourself.
And you don’t need to ask Mother Apple for permission…
http://tinyurl.com/6l9j76
http://tinyurl.com/5qtyv8
The list goes on–
And Apple boys call Microsoft users sheep….
Holy cow! Are people touchy or what?
[It’s too bad that CompUSA manager wasn’t working at that Apple store.]
It’s not like these kids loaded SkyNet on the phone, which then started WWIII. Though from the reactions here, it seems it wouldn’t take much…
Maybe not skynet. I was thinking more like WarGames.
>>It’s ridiculous to think that these
>>children would not be punished for defacing
>>Apple property in an Apple store.
“Defacing”? Wtf? Performing a function on the iPhone to evaluate its capabilities is “defacing Apple property”?
Were you a reporter for Pravda, or what?
#43 – It is interesting that you send links to Pocket PC software and each item listed had number of downloads at 0. Wow, real popular and in demand huh?
#46 – Mustard, what if you walked into a automobile showroom and opened the hood and installed an aftermarket computer modification and without asking anyone? The police would be called, you’d be tasered, wood shampooed and there would be Mustard all over the parking lot.
>>you’d be tasered, wood shampooed and there
>>would be Mustard all over the parking lot.
Shitty analogy, my fellow condiment. Aftermarket computer mods to an auto are permanent, and require significant effort to remove.
More apt would be someone walking into a toy store and drawing a picture of a competitor’s product on an Etch-A-Sketch. All you have to do is pick the thing up and shake it to put it back to its original condition, which is essentially the equivalent of what the Apple Police had to do to remove a silly little game from an iPhone.
#49 – You’re way off base comparing Apples and Autos. I’ve been trying to get the game on my iPhone ever since I read this by the way.
So you mean if I drew a picture on the Etch-a-Sketch of that god awful touch screen card table/kitty little box from MS that somehow there is a comparison? Wow, that’s a stretch.
>>You’re way off base comparing Apples and Autos.
Are you fermenting, Mister K? Is the alcohol content rising to the point where you’re becoming confused? YOU are the one who compared Apples and Autos. I brought in the perfectly relevant Etch-A-Sketch.
In any case, Police State action against a couple of pubes putting a game on a demo iPhone is about as lame as it gets.
What amazes me about this whole topic is how much easier it is to bait Windows fans than Macintosh fans these days. Used to be the other way around…
#19, gq,
Installing software or modifying a device you do not own is criminal mischief, plain and simple.
Not really. The software would have to in some way harm the device or harm the store / seller. Since the software will not harm the device and Apple is not harmed by its installation there was no mischief. Their installation did not modify the device in any manner that would prevent Apple from continuing to use it as a demonstrator model.
It no different then if you went into any store and started fucking with their stuff.
Oh, wrong again. This model was on display for the public to test drive. They were not opening boxes to pull out new devices or “playing with the stock”. The store invited people to “fuck” with their stuff.
#31, gq,
You really shouldn’t comment of things you know nothing about. It just makes you look stupid.
Yes, very good advice. I wonder why you so seldom follow it?
53-haha you think so? You apple fanboys are the ones too rabit to think clearly. Perfect example is this story here, in which you think that it’s acceptable to illegally detain people for doing nothing wrong, except to dare to install a third party app on your golden idol, the iPhone.
Again, these people should sue apple, get some great negative PR against apple, and walk away with a ton of cash.
#30
And using Apple to rule the world is like a turd yelling at the sun.
#47
True, we all know that for an app to be able to run in any Apple product needs two important things: Look extra pretty and mandatory repurchase after every upgrade patch.
On another note, I noticed yesterday that Sam’s Club now has a large section where they sell Apple products. WTF?
Gee… Lucky kids… 😉
“Four Palo Alto teenagers raised in the heart of Silicon Valley got the scare of their lives when they thought they might be banished from all Apple stores worldwide, for life.”
The scare of their lives was being banned from Apple stores? I’m gonna guess they have lived a pretty damn sheltered life. I stroll in to my local Apple store once in a while, but if I was banned I think I’d get over it pretty quick.
What you’ve got to understand is that to use an iPone in any way other that what God (or Steeve, his representative here on Earth) has intended is just wrong.
They wouldn’t get a dollar of my money again if they begged me to come to their store.
I would go to one of their stores if they gave me a free iphone.
Hey, now that wal mart will be selling iphones, will they be the same?
Banning people for downloading some app onto an iphone?
Be interesting to see as time marches on.