back to article iPhone monopoly-kicker starts charging for jailbreak apps

A site devoted to providing iPhone software for those who object to the Apple monopoly has announced plans to start charging for applications, presenting the possibility of real competition in app provisioning. The Cydia website has been providing tools for unlocking, or "jailbreaking" iPhones, as well as non-Apple-approved …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    Excellent news

    "Apple [...] argued that jailbreaking an iPhone was illegal under the [DMCA]. A single site providing tools and applications could quickly be shut down by Apple's lawyers"

    It seems that in typical Amercan style, Apple seem to be thinking that the rest of the world gives two hoots for an Americal law. Simple solution is to make sure the servers carrying the jailbreak software are located outside of the USA (they may well be already).

    This does sound like excellent news though - a proper (non-sanitised) market for iPhone apps. I can only wish them luck with it.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Jobs Horns

    love macs, hate the attitude...

    yay for this new app store!!

  3. PushF12
    Jobs Horns

    Saurik is an idiot for attracting this kind of attention

    Saurik should have put the store application and/or commercial framework in a new repository, named it something different, and had commercial developers depend on it.

    The name "Cydia" is now contaminated. Apple's battalion of undead lawyers is now mercilessly tracking anybody that smells of the project.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    a shot in the foot, surely

    i don't think this is going to work really

    i'll accept there are some users of Cydia who will pay because they feel some kinda of moral responcibility, but the vast majority of those who use homebrew fall squarely into the freetard category. they've spent the last 18 months crowing insesantly about how great the jailbroken world is because everything's free there - i don't see them suddenly digging deep into their pockets

  5. raving angry loony
    Jobs Horns

    To hell with Apple

    Screw Apple. From moving pins around in the iPod Touch so that other iPod accessories like car chargers don't work anymore (thus trying to force punters to buy MORE), to changing the distance between the slot and the mic jack by a couple millimetres so that yet more accessories don't work anymore (thus rendering several other existing accessories useless), the fuckers have completely gone around the bend with their wallet-grabbing exercise on the iPhone/iPodTouch. Screw them, screw their anti-consumer ways, yay to anyone who can take these asshats down a notch.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Happy

    Alternatively?

    Apple might say:

    Here are your formally approved apps and here are your informal and unapproved apps.

    You pays your money you makes your choice?

  7. Sunny Guy
    Pirate

    Try following the rules

    If you can't abide by Apple's and AT&T's rules, then don't buy an iPhone.

    It looks like it is not only in Africa that they have pirates. Is stealing "in"?

    It will "come around". The chickens will come home to roost by-and-by.

    Sunny Guy

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    yeah right

    Ahh,. so instead of paying for the validated software from Apple and paying a reputable company you'll now hand over your money to a bunch of guys who are openly stealing someone elses technology to make money and trust them to be honest and trust the apps not send all your browsing history, bank transactions etc to some dodgy software developer in Asia?

    Good luck with that. I'll stick with Apple thanks.

  9. Ted
    Boffin

    The iPhone isn't a Monopoly

    This author might want to check his dictionary for the word "Monopoly", since it means:

    "Exclusive control by one group of the means of producing or selling a commodity or service"

    The iPhone just past 1% of all cell phones worldwide, so that is not anywhere close to a "monopoly".

    If someone doesn't like the smooth way Apps are added to the iPhone, they are welcome to chose among 20 or so other vendors that make up the other 99% of cell phones.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Linux

    meh

    I wanted only one App in cydia, the PDANet app. But they kept pushing up the price of PDANet and surprisingly with each version since 2.x series OS, the PDANet has become a pain to get working, it used to detect and bridge 3G to WiFi in seconds before. Now its quit program, enable/disable wifi, restart program, reset phone. All sorts of hassles just to get it up for an hour or so session before it crashes.

    No go for me right now.

    Only Apps I use are:

    HUD +CAMS, all the traffic cameras in all the majors (Europe, Canada, USA, Australia) and instant screen reversal so you toss your iPhone on your dash flat and it projects the HUD onto your windshield for night time driving like a jet fighter pilot! A whole $1.19 in the Apple APP store. [compared to what for Road Angel? Tom Tom? other GPS with traffic cams]

    xGPS 1.2, all the free GPS map with Voice turn by turn navigation by Steven Hawkins himself! Separate Linux, OS X, WIndows map managers that let you download every single zoom level of google maps for any user defined boundary locations and lets you bring down maps and then send it via WiFi to your iPhone. (can download real-time as you drive or before driving time on the iPhone but then you chew up your mobile data quota balance). Has route calculations, re-calculations, Offline modes, multi-GPS support so iPod Touches can use a plug in GPS and run in offline mode. All the bells and whistles of the $3000.00 factory installed system in my past cars. Price... FREE via Cydia.

    Cydia Store Pay for Apps need something really compelling to make it a go IMHO

  11. Joe K
    Dead Vulture

    Utter, complete tosh

    Since the Appstore got going jailbreaking has dwindled to a TINY| bunch of geeks all inexplicably proud they they are "teh hax0rs".

    You'd be lucky to find ONE who would pay a single dollar for anything.

    Threat to Apple? You must be fucking joking, tell me this is one of those irony articles.

  12. Eric Hood

    Pod power connector

    @raving angry loony

    The iPod power connector issue is indeed a nuisance especially in the area of in car head units.

    Three years ago Apple warned accessory makers to stop using firewire pins for charging as firewire would be removed in the future.

    Apple were ignored and this is the result.

  13. Robert Hill
    Jobs Halo

    @raving angry loony

    What an appropriate tag. Apple notified hardware developers WELL in advance that they were dropping support for one of the two available power voltages in the standard iPod connecter quite some time ago, dropping the +12 volt lines out of the pinouts. Nothing below board, nothing radical...just that they were out of PCB real estate to put the voltage regulator'converter for +12 volts on in the newer products, and that new accessories should only be able to provide +5 volts as a result. That was an ENGINEERING decision, to allow them to make the Touch, Nano, and iPhone smaller, more sexy.

    I bought an FM transmitter and car charger the first day the iPhone 3G was available, and it works just fine...because that vendor followed the standards.

    Sorry if your paranoia demands that you need to find nefarious motives and conspiracies behind basic engineering decisions...

  14. P. Lee
    Dead Vulture

    re: Try following the rules

    There's the rules and then are companies taking advantage of having rules.

    I could be wrong, but aren't Apple unique in saying what you can and can't do with the phone *after* you've "bought" it?

    You can unlock a phone from a network, but you still have to pay out the contract, and that's ok.

    To be more transparent, Apple should admit that you are only renting/leasing the phone and not buying it. If you're talking about "playing by the rules," Apple should not have the power to redefine the word "sold" just for the iphone.

    Don't get me wrong, although I don't have one, I'm quite a fan of what Apple have done with OSX and their Macs and I wish them well with the iphone because of their track-record of doing amazing things with average hardware. However, if you set yourself like a shop and pretend to sell stuff but with no intention of letting the purchaser take control of the item, that's just deceitful.

    Icon: when the world ends, all the cockroaches die and el reg goes off-line. I suspect my Nokia 6310i will still be running.

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    It's my hardware and...

    ...i'll do what i like with it!

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    Ah, Mactards

    Out in force today the mac shills arent they?

    Best joke-Apple being a reputable company!

    They are a bunch of mindless jerks who will be first against the wall when the revolution comes, along with the likes of sunny guy.

  17. paul
    Jobs Horns

    @Ted

    It is a monopoly depending upon how you look at things. The iphone as you may have guessed does more than make calls.

    Therefore all the phones that just make calls are not in the same category. Of all the phones which allow you to install software from an online store - I would say apple has a clear monopoly as the android alternative isn't a big enough player yet.

    Well down Saurik for Cydia , all competition is welcome .

    The rest of you, go lie down on a mat pointing towards Cupertino , CA - look up at the big poster of steve jobs and prey to apple.

  18. Richard Sloan
    Jobs Horns

    So anyway...

    ...my G1. No trouble installing apps not from the market, even before I rooted it to get wifitether and multitouch working (Thanks, JesusFreke)...

    Still waiting on google to let us eurotrash have paid apps as my free betas are starting to expire and I want Doggcatcher back!

  19. Gavin Bloeman
    Thumb Down

    They're losing their biggest fans

    I used to be a big fan of Apple having started off using the Mac IIsi many years ago, I just kept with them (typing this on a Macbook Pro now), but they're really starting to fuck me off lately with their anti-consumer ways. They're not going to make any friends long term.

    I'm not a techie, I'm a designer (hence the Macs in the past) and I've spent 2 days trying to 'fix' my Dad's iPhone - there's nothing actually wrong with the thing, it's just Apple being twats about him having to use o2 as a provider. It's wrong and it'll end in tears for them.

    Rant over.

  20. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    @By Sunny Guy Posted Saturday 7th March 2009 09:29 GMT

    This may come as a shock to you, but the iPhone is available in more places than just the USA.... where I live it's possible to purchase an iPhone outright without any contract and without a telco lock.

    Personally I haven't bought an iPhone because of the lack of competition to the itunes store, but this might just change my mind (if Apple don't screw it up by suing it into oblivion).

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