[defamed01]

I used to have a landline until about 3 weeks ago. My job requires me to travel every so often, and I didn't feel having a landline that I hardly use was worth it. But now I'm thinking of getting it again. It feels so weird not having a landline, including no longer having the peace of mind that if something is wrong with my cellphone, I have the landline to fall back on. That being said, the author did raise good points, but I still think he's making a big deal over nothing. What if Sprint's network was down in the area you live in, or the network was clogged and you couldn't get a call through? What if there was a power outage, and the cellphone you had on the charger while you were asleep didn't get charged, and you couldn't dial 911 because of a dead battery? What if you had a landline, and you couldn't dial 911 because the lines in your area were being serviced for repairs? There are a lot of factors that can prevent someone from dialing 911 besides a forced update and potentially bricked phone. That doesn't make what Palm is doing any less legal than network or landline maintenance.

Now don't get me wrong; I'm not a fan of forced updates. I love the fact that I don't have to update my PSP or PS3 everytime a firmware update is released. I think it would be a better idea to have the update download in the background, and the user can install it when he/she is good and ready. Forced OTA updates can mar the user experience a bit, and can potentially cause a serious issue in a worst case scenario, but I don't think it would result in legal ramifications.