I have SOME respect for Apple but I will say this.....They care nothing about the users opinions for the most part.
I always chuckle when I see comments like this! Apple happens to be one of the most successful corporations in America today. They have a net worth of over $222 billion dollars. Their closest competitor in the technology field would be Microsoft with a net worth of a measly $219 billion dollars. As a matter of fact, the only American company with a higher net worth is Exxon Mobil.
Since the introduction of the first iPhone, Apple has sold over 160 million iOS devices and to go with all those devices, over 10 billion apps.
A company simply does not reach this level of success by ignoring the opinions of the buying public.
Take a look at General Motors. After the financial crisis, they did nothing to change their business model to account for the loss in sales and eventually went bankrupt They were forced to sell off several of its brands and would be out of business had it not been for the federal bailout. In other words, they kept running their business the way they wanted to and ignored the buying trends of the car buying public.
Now take a look at Ford. They saw the financial crisis coming. They scaled back production to those models that were top sellers, not models that they thought people should have like Saab, Hummer and Saturn. As a result, they did not need a bailout from Washington to stay in business.
The bottom line is that you stay in business and are successful because you respond to the buying public, not by ignoring them!
I agree on that one. Jailbreaking hasn't got anything to do with Apple. The JB community is comparatively a minority when you look at the whole ecosystem of iOS devices and, technologically speaking, there isn't really much of a reason to do it. Sure, you can add features that you think should exist but don't but other than that, what's the net benefit? I say this having jailbroken my iPad as soon as I got it home, same goes with my iPod Touch. I un-jailbroke my ipad, though, because it's not worth the hassle, because I actually use it for work.
Most people who jailbreak are doing it because they want to buy cracked apps, not because they want to 'add functionality', most of which is pointless anyway. Take multitasking, for instance. Other than listening to music and reading what benefits do you gain on an iPad from it? There really aren't very many. I've written papers, researched topics, blogged, created graphics for projects, played various musical instruments and created keynote presentations on my iPad, often mixing several of those activities together and never really needed to 'multitask', especially being as people aren't really capable of multitasking anyway (look it up before you go bitching about how I'm wrong)
The small group of people who do jailbreak to add missing functionality are losing other functionality, such as the ease with which you can restore your iPad incase something goes wrong and the ability to reboot untethered (for those who JP with latest redsn0w).
I jailbroke my iPad to use it tethered to my BlackBerry for internet, but now I've bought a Clear iSpot and use it instead, faster speed and better reliability, so the tethering was a novelty that to me wasn't worth the hassle
So what it comes down to are that most jailbreakers are what would be referred to in the hacking world as 'script kiddies', people who use tools with no real reason or understanding of how they work, and there are only a few people who do it for idealogical purposes. Saurik or whatever his name is being one of those few, though I call even that into question because he gets a cut of money made from Cydia purchases and is also now quite the hacking conference rock-star.
I think Apple will continue screwing with JailBreakers because they think it's fun, engineers are like they - they love challenges, and thats exactly what's going on, Apple engineers are playing a game against the jailbreakers who are also engineers, and eventually one side will win even if Apple does it by releasing a new product with tougher firmware.
So, does Apple listen to it's customers? Steve Jobs personally responds to emails sometimes, who else does that? The JailBreak community created 'multi-tasking' and then Apple released it into 4.2.1. The community wants cameras, the iPad 2 has 2 of em...yeah, I think they listen.