iPhone: “I call the mother-ship when I don’t recognise an application your running …”

According to iPhone Atlas, Apple are readying a remote system for blacklisting applications on the iPhone.

If true, Apple has setup a system where, through the 2.0 software, iPhone will call home (to Apple) through a specialised call-back URL. The URL is enlisted deep within the iPhone 2.0 firmware, and looks like this …

https://iphone-services.apple.com/clbl/unauthorizedApps

According to Jonathan Zdziarski, author of the book ‘iPhone Open Application Development’:

“This suggests that the iPhone calls home once in a while to find out what applications it should turn off. At the moment, no apps have been blacklisted, but by all appearances, this has been added to disable applications that the user has already downloaded and paid for, if Apple so chooses to shut them down.

“I discovered this doing a forensic examination of an iPhone 3G. It appears to be tucked away in a configuration file deep inside CoreLocation.”

Yes – This suggests Apple have the power to cut off usage to applications you’ve previously bought, remotely, from your 2.0-running device, if they so choose.

Scary stuff.

R-Fly