Dear Steve Jobs,
I realize your bound to make money for your shareholders and are beholden to the corporate overlords of profit and loss, but seriously dude!
You call out your bought-and-paid-for guerilla hit squad to bust into some blogger's house and ransack his stuff, all because he wrote some shit about a cell phone that doesn't even officially exist. Sure, he was involved in some shady shit to get it, but just because your acolyte got careless after a couple steins of pilsner, doesn't mean you have to go all ape-shit.
I am regular purchaser of the "i" line of phones and mp3 players, not because they're the greatest things since pita bread, but because I'm a lazy bastard who wants everything done for me and doesn't want to have to think about actually getting complete use from a mobile device.
You see, I just like shit to work. But I also like to try out new things that other owners (not USERS) but OWNERS have done with their devices. So I propose a concept for you.
If you're all hot and bothered that your Appletini-soaked employee was either negligent, drunk or just plain stupid, I can accept that.
If you want to be all pissed off that YOUR prototype had pictures leaked all over the internet for geeks everywhere to react to like a backyard fireworks show, I can accept that as well.
If you want to fire up your private militia/police force to trample on the rights on a blogger (and I won't even make the journalist argument) because someone touched your toy, I may not like it, but I can accept it.
But here's what you have to accept!
When I go out to buy your "next gen" groundbreaking device that adds a couple of features to the old device and is really like last year's Chrysler Cordoba with a new cigarette lighter, it's MINE!
I get to crack it, hack it, smack it, break it up, bust it up, beat it up, and reconfigure it any way I like because I OWN it.
I'm not renting, leasing, or putting it on layaway. I have a receipt in hand, a VISA statement in the mail and if I lose it, it's not you that suffers, it's me. So if I own it, don't start hating when I start jailbreaking.
Because if you start telling me that when I own the next iPhone, you can force me to do anything with it, I'm getting a group of my friends together, and we're gonna imbibe in a few steins of pilsner, and we're gonna buy fake badges at the dollar store, and we're gonna inevitably make numerous bad jokes in reference to Treasure of the Sierra Madre, and we're gonna use Open Office to print up a fake search warrant, and we're gonna invade your Star Chamber in the middle of the night, and we're gonna raid your fridge, 'cause no doubt we'll be hungry.
Are you sure you want risk this eventuality? Are you sure you want to continue to be such a dick?
You're sooo lucky I'm a lazy bastard.
But I'll give someone a dollar to take my place... perhaps Gizmodo will outbid me.