Underground App Store Courts the Jailbroken

PainMeds writes "Apple's stepped-up and controversial rejections are helping to foster competition in the app store marketplace. According to an article by Wired, developers aren't taking AppStore rejection lying down, but are turning to the hacking community's repository system for the iPhone to launch an app store of their own. The 4-month-old Cydia store is yielding notably higher sales for a few application developers than Apple's AppStore, and is reportedly running on over 4 million Apple iPhone devices, with perhaps 350,000 connected at any one time. In this store, developers are distributing applications they've written that push the limits of Apple's normal AppStore policies, with software to add file downloads to Safari, trick applications into thinking they're on Wi-Fi (for VoIP), and enhance other types functionality. You'll also find the popular Google Voice application, which was recently rejected by Apple. Third party application development has been around since 2007, when the iPhone was originally introduced, and became so popular that O'Reilly Media published a book geared toward writing applications before an SDK was available. The Cydia store acts as both a free package repository and commercial storefront to third-party developers."

Comments

Bye Bye Monopoly

[GreenTech11]

And there goes Apple's monopoly. I can't say this is a bad thing, it gives users another option, without severely damaging Apple.

Re:Bye Bye Monopoly

[Anonymous Coward]

I jailbroke my iPod touch with fewer than 5 clicks. iPhones/iPods are probably the easiest phones in history (maybe an exaggeration, maybe not) to jailbreak, due to their popularity.

Re:Bye Bye Monopoly

[Anonymous Coward]

need jailbroken iphone

There's an app for that.

Re:Bye Bye Monopoly

[Tyr_7BE]

Most people won't do it though. Sure your average college kid or whatever has no problem downloading an app to jailbreak the phone, but joe average on the street doesn't tend to flock towards anything involving firmware modification. They buy a phone, they use the phone, and that's all they do.

Re:Bye Bye Monopoly

[0100010001010011]

Apple seems pretty lax, especially compared to other companies, with the OSX86 AND Jailbreaking communities.

They really only went after Pystar when they tried selling OS X clones. The Hackintosh community is doing pretty well just like the Jailbreaking community. Worst I've seen is a takedown letter for some files, but instructions for OS X on the Mini 9 are still out there.

Apple seems to be making it 'reasonably' difficult to keep the interested parties (RIAA/MPAA/AT&T) happy, but they really don't make it impossible to do stuff. OS X Client still doesn't have a 16 digit code to enter to install it. They sell a Family pack of 5 licenses for relatively cheap, even though there's no way to actually hard lock it to JUST 5 computers.

Competition? What is that?

[houstonbofh]

Normally Apple is on a totally different playing field from any competition... Not here, and it will be interesting to see how they deal with this. :) I am betting lawyers and politicians.

The Obvious Truth

[geegel]

Those that hack or pirate always have it better. No DRM, no restrictions on what software you can install, no need for physical media and the list goes on. Being a nice customer simply doesn't pay anymore these days.

Re:The Obvious Truth

[Colonel Korn]

Not entirely true. Ask the recent defendant who now has to cough up close to $700,000 for his piracy. While being a nice customer might not pay, breaking the law might cost a lot more. Yes, yes, the law might be stupid, but it's still the law.

To date, I have never been able to get out of a speeding ticket by telling the magistrate that the speed limit should be 65 instead of 55 on that highway.

In the US that's actually one of the easiest ways to get out of a speeding ticket (a family member of mine just did it, and has done it before). If you can prove that the speed limit on a non-highway should be higher than it is (based on state guidelines for deciding speed limits) and a review of that speed limit hasn't been done in X years (X= 2 or 3, I think), you can get out of the ticket and force the police to collect data on driving habits on that road in order to define a new speed limit.

Isn't it ironic...

[2obvious4u]

That the company trumpeting how 1984 wouldn't be like 1984 was the company to most make it like 1984?

Re:Pros and Cons

[commodore64_love]

Although you can't really blame Apple for denying Google Voice and similar apps

You can't really blame Comcast for denying access to hulu.com or tnt.com or scifi.com.....

Just something to think about - the motives for these denials are clear.

Re:all hail...

[Chyeld]

"Apple - Think Less"

On the other hand if you peruse an actual list of 'real' Apple slogans, some of them work without any changes.

"Apple - What kind of man owns his own computer?"

Google Voice not on Cydia

[grahamsaa]

The Google Voice app is NOT available on Cydia. GV Mobile (not a Google product) is available, but it doesn't integrate well with the iPhone's contact list. GV mobile is a far cry from any native app that Google would have released for the iPhone.

I have a simple question...

[diamondsw]

...how hard is a jailbroken device to maintain over time? I understand the initial process is fairly simple, but with most hacks maintenance and keeping it hacked can be difficult (witness hackintoshes when OS updates come out, Tivos when the kernel is updated, etc). Can anyone comment on how hard it would be for an "average user" to not only set this up, but keep it running over time?