Apple Bans Jailbreakers From the App Store

Hugh Pickens writes "Adam Mills writes in the Examiner that Apple has been cutting off access to the iTunes App Store for iPhone hackers and jailbreakers. Sherif Hashim, the iPhone developer who successfully hacked the iPhone OS 3.1.3 and unlocked the 05.12.01 baseband for iPhone 3GS and 3G devices, discovered he'd been cut off and twittered: '"Your Apple ID was banned for security reasons," that's what i get when i try to go to the app store, they must be really angry.' Another hacker, iH8Sn0w, who is behind the Sn0wbreeze tool, confirms that his account has also been deactivated even though iH8sn0w's exploit had only been revealed to Dev Team, the group responsible for the PwnageTool. 'It is kind of surprising that two people associated with jailbreaking have had this happen to them so soon after one another, but it's too early to say if this is a campaign that Apple is starting up,' writes Mills."

Comments

Re:So they should

[poetmatt]

where do you come up with this? Jail breaking exists because there is a demand for features that apple refuses to provide. It's no different than rooting a google phone, and for the same reasons.

Easy examples: Flash, multitasking, tethering.

I'm an apple hater, someone who doesn't even have an iphone, and even I know this. Basically, there wouldn't be jailbreaking if apple was actually giving their customers what they want.

Re:So they should

[IndustrialComplex]

I'll add my experience:

I've jailbroken my phone, and I have not placed a single app that was available on the appstore on my phone without purchasing it from the appstore.

I jailbroke my phone so I could get into the file system of the phone because I absolutely hate using iTunes to get files on and off my device. I also liked to be able to multitask and not have my preferred music player stop working because I wanted to look up something on the internet.

In fact, if I couldn't jailbreak my phone I wouldn't have purchased it in the first place since in its default state, it's a pretty crappy device for my needs.

Re:I don't believe it

[MightyMartian]

Christ almighty, it is 1986 all over again. "Yeah, Apple doesn't need all those people who just want to plug in any all video card. We aspire to a higher class of user." which, roughly translated meant "Okay, IBM and clone manufacturers, we seed 90%+ of market share to you to assure our purity."

Re:Not surprised...

[InsaneProcessor]

This is why I do not buy anything from Apple. I will not be forced into a little bubble like all of you cattle out there. I have missed nothing as the result. By the way, my phone dose multitasking and I am not banned from anything (except Apple).

Folks? Could we wait for a reply from Apple?

[Opportunist]

Here's a possible other side: Someone learned their login credentials, or at least the name, and tried too many times to log on as them. Poof, account locked for security reasons.

I'm usually not the first to come to Apple's defense (personally, I try hard to avoid their products exactly for the same reason I avoid Sony, I'm not a big fan of vendor lock-in), but I think we should first of all wait 'til it's verified that this is due to their jailbreaking.

Then there's still enough time to give them the verbal smackdown they (then) deserve.

Re:So they should

[IndustrialComplex]

Here's a rather silly question - why did you buy it in the first place?

In its default state, I wouldn't have, and I didn't. I waited until it was possible to hack the device, then I purchased it once I saw that it wasn't a flakey hack and it was established that I wouldn't brick the device by breathing on it the wrong way. At that point, when I considered the total package (jailbroken iphone), it WAS what I wanted in a device since the alternatives (Verizon, Tmobile, Sprint) were not actually viable alternatives.

So in short, the unjailbroken iPhone was not something I wanted. The Jailbroken iPhone was.