Rogue iPhone app stores raking mazuma Apple's heavy-handed App Store mismanagement may anger and frustrate many iPhone developers and users, but it's making one group quite happy: jailbreakers. There's a growing subculture of iPhone developers who are opting out of the App Store altogether, instead punting their wares on Cydia, an iPhone App Store "For the Rest of …
It's rather ironic that the purported reason for the "tight" control (to use a polite word) Apple exerts over what enters the iTunes store is EXACTLY the reason a subculture has sprung up which now circumvents the whole circus, dropping Apple into a wholly unnecessary arms race.
One of the lessons of PRACTICLA security is that making things unworkably tight simply leads to user bypass rather than user compliance.
If Apple would save itself some money by putting that staff to some more productive use and let the culture be what it should be, with just some checking and complaints processes, I think it would kill that jailbreak market overnight and at the same time convert a lot of people that rightfully start to wonder if they really should switched one control freak for another (those who want to convert from MS to Apple).
I'm probably not a good example of the "average" user, but it's precisely this control freakery that has stopped me from using Apple products other than possibly the iPhone (I've tried, it's "OK" for what I nee, I wouldn't call it brilliant and I may go the jailbreak route too).
If Apple doesn't see sense, well, I'm not too bothered. I don't buy technology because it's today's fashion, I buy it because it can do useful work for me. With that approach there are plenty alternatives..
Damn....hope my mate doesnt learn about this....I wont be able to mock his iphone for lack of features that i have on my g2 then.
So let me get this straight...Apple doesnt want somthing that makes thier i-phone MORE desirable?
The fact that some apps WOULD never become avalible was one of the reason i went G2
At least you have full control over the music you put on an ipod, but importing purchases from elsewhere into itunes. why not let us do that with apps on an iphone? Just warn users if its not 'certified' and let them override it. I havent changed from WM to a new iphone because I wont be able to install anything I want.
I don't believe that Palm had any problems with crashing cell phone towers and supporting drug dealers on the Treo. While there were a couple of marketplaces, you could get your apps anywhere and load them up. Is the iPhone so fragile that Apple needs to bless every app? I think not. Time to open it up, Cupertino!
I really use it for the fact I can use Winterboard (themes).
This means I can have my emails, weather, notes etc displayed on my lock screen - which is useful if u just want a quick glimpse at what you are doing - and a custom layout.
I really don't see why Apple can't allow these things, I *do* like Apple products - I choose to buy them, but locking them down in such stupid ways only makes me want to find a way around it to make it work like *I* want.
I would do the same if it was Palm, MS, <other mobile computer os thingy>
Yes, there are some nifty apps on Cydia (and Ice), some do drain the battery (iPhone was not built with them in mind) but some dont, and add some useful (standard/expected) features!
They need to stop being a smothering parent, and let their baby grow and evolve into a fantastic applicance!
Ahem, anyway, enough fan-boi/commen sense - its Friday! ... Have a beer on me.
I love cydia and the rock store... I've bought lots of little apps that I find good value.
Funny thing is, cydia is the only way I can have a 5 icon dock or a background under the icons..
Once Jailbroken, you'll never go back... especially if you find this useful.
http://www.rockyourphone.com/index.php/intelliscreen.html?feat=y
if I want to take on the risk of bricking my phone or having to restore then fair enough... but I should have that option, I will not put up with any pish that I don't own the phone and only license the OS. Screw you - tell that to my wallet bitches.
I love apple.... but only when I can get the firmware hacks and 3rd party tools that let me do what his jobbieness does not want me to do. I wish to keep it that way - and if apple wishes any future custom from me - they should too.
These criminals running Cydia and all those who buy from them should be thrown in jail. We can't have cowboys like this running around, doing as they please, installing whatever they want on Apple Property.
Apple's strict control is there for a reason. System stability and security is paramount on all Apple devices. Jailbreaking and modding all the hard work the fine engineers at Apple have done just undermines society as a whole, allowing all that baked-in Apple goodness to slip away.
The FCC should be investigating iPhone jailbreakers instead of Apple.
Americans certainly seem to think so. Ars Technica have been irritating me for some time with the likes of ‘a jailbroken iPhone’, ‘a jailbroken iPhone app’ and worse still ‘a jailbroken app.’ The app hasn’t been freed from jail. I can only find jailbreak in the dictionary as a noun. English is very flexible, and we often turn nouns into verbs and adjectives. The author of your article has chosen to use jailbreak as a verb, which I believe is normal iPhone usage. To get the passive voice, he had to use its past participle. But, to go from the noun to a verb, and then on to an adjective is painful. If you ever feel inclined, please use the noun as an adjective directly. This gives us a jailbreak iPhone, a jailbreak-iPhone app and a jailbreak app.
So it starts with the iPhone and the Touch. Here's a scary thought - I wonder if some evil Jobs clone within Apple will eventually lock down the Mac in the same way - I can see the 'reasoning' now. 'To ensure the stability and security of your Mac, and stopping the Internet from being destroyed in a fiery cataclysm.'
Think is, "jailbreak" is a compound word, and the second word is "break," which has a proper spate of verbs, adjectives, and so on. This, if "jailbreak" (using the noun/verb "break") is a noun/verb, then logic could dictate that the adjective form is "jailbroken" (using the adjective "broken"). That said, such a term isn't used that much because other words tend to take precedence, such as "sprung" or "escaped". Perhaps we can agree on terms here: jailbreaking an iPhone is valid enough, just as would jailbreaking a convict, but perhaps an iPhone already unlocked could be called "sprung" or "escaped" or "loose", and apps that require jailbreaking to work probably should be termed "escapee apps".
Was long over due someone providing a solution against Apples criminal anti-competitive behaviour continues sadly though with how they use the app store to limit consumers from services they can’t extract money from. It is truly amazing how a company so blatantly acting out of greed and not giving users freedom of choice are worshiped as they are. Fingers crossed the FCC with give them a good kick up the behind to get them to behave.
...how about FUGITIVE iPhones for ones already broken loose and and fugitive or even BLACK iPhone apps (as in black market) for apps that require a fugitive iPhone to work.
As for getting one, I haven't been interested in them as long as they've been priced so high (I'll stick to my Nokia N95, thank you), and it doesn't look like they'll get any cheaper anytime soon.
I am a big fan of Apple. As a family we own 3 Macs (which we love), an iPhone, an iPod Touch and two iPods, but...
I really don't like the restrictions on where I can install software from and Apple's apparently arbitrary approach to which applications it will allow on the App Store and which it won't.
The idea that Apple would extend this approach to their computers is clearly absurd, but since the freedom to install 3rd party software has not damaged the ability of my MacBook Pro to function well, why should it on the iPhone?
I like my iPhone (although I love my Mac) but unless they change this approach, I am unlikely to replace my iPhone with another.
I've jailbroken my phone twice, before 3.0 and after, and each time I've gone back to the default for various reasons. Sure, there are useful things - sbsettings the main one I cared about, but upgrading to a new version is a hassle.
Regarding the warranty, I restored my jailbroken phone via iTunes and took it to the Apple Store to be repaired (the mute switch had got sensitive). They replaced it immediately (great, new phone 1 week before end of warranty!) but the guy noticed that I had a battery life percentage still (which sbsettings turns on and survives a clean restore). I claimed no knowledge of it and all was fine!
There are things I'd like added/changed on the phone, but I'm willing to wait till Apple do it. As I would guess are most people...
>> Err, think again. We had to jailbreak our android phone at work to be able to use a tethering app on it.. Nice rant, shame about the facts :)
No you do not have to root your Android to tether. Just install PdaNet for Android and away you go...
I've done it. Works PERFECTLY.
...a non-official more liberal sidetrack of the AppStore such as Cydia/Installer, but there are some very good reasons for not going down that path - just try justifying with upper management in your org to buy iPhones and then have them all 'jailbroken' cos it makes them more useable.
There are so many unknowns, possibly so many developers with alterior motives - its a great way of getting malware onto potentially thousands of iPhones. That coupled with the fact that lots of unofficial products are made by so many people outside the western world - Yankee/Brit haters have to be amongst them all.
Not only that but there is also no code review, and you could rapidly end up with some very hairy software.
But luckily its mitigated by the fact that there are only a handful of different device hardware variations - write an app on iPhone, debug it, its likely to behave very similarly on an iPod Touch, even going back hardware versions. You can't say the same thing about the PC platform, or even Windows Mobile.
The real issue though is with piracy - check out Appulous' Installous. Same situation with the Sony PSP - a spanish chap ripped that OS completely out of the lockdowns Sony inflicted on everybody, and singlehandedly ended up creating a huge piracy problem for the platform that Sony can never control. Of course it was done in the name of liberal-ness and being able to write 'homebrew' apps, but I dont believe it for a second - especially what with his custom-firmware's inherent ability to copy and play ISO files of the UMD game disks, copying them to your memory stick.
I think the same is happening with Installous, however piracy isn't going to be as big on the iPhone - the iPhone/Touch is aimed not at unscrupulous gamers alone - and titles are available so easily and cheaply from the AppStore - its considered a lot more hard work to go to the effort of 'full on' piracy.
"..a non-official more liberal sidetrack of the AppStore such as Cydia/Installer, but there are some very good reasons for not going down that path - just try justifying with upper management in your org to buy iPhones and then have them all 'jailbroken' cos it makes them more useable."
Why would you try justifying to management buying a phone that doesn't do what you need it to? The reason that it's ridiculous is because you'd be a laughing stock for getting them to pay stupid money for something that isn't useable enough in the first place.
"There are so many unknowns, possibly so many developers with alterior motives - its a great way of getting malware onto potentially thousands of iPhones. That coupled with the fact that lots of unofficial products are made by so many people outside the western world - Yankee/Brit haters have to be amongst them all."
Yes, terrorists are indeed planning the downfall of the Western World by...ROGUE IPHONE APPS! Best get onto MI5 immediately, dunno why they haven't thought of it yet.
"Not only that but there is also no code review, and you could rapidly end up with some very hairy software."
Well yes, but most people manage to deal with that perfectly fine on a day-to-day basis when they install freeware, never mind the mess that some things get into WITH code review (Windows, Safari, Flash, shall I continue?).
"But luckily its mitigated by the fact that there are only a handful of different device hardware variations - write an app on iPhone, debug it, its likely to behave very similarly on an iPod Touch, even going back hardware versions. You can't say the same thing about the PC platform, or even Windows Mobile."
That's because they're essentially the same thing, repackaged, and sold for more money. On a PC platform (I note that you seem to equate PC with Windows, as I'm sure, even being a Windows fan, that most apps written for the latest flavour of Ubuntu would work most of the way back, moreso than Apple products in many cases), UP UNTIL Vista, most things written for the platform would indeed work in pretty much the same way. Vista is a different fish, because it enforces standards that MS have been pushing for a long time, which is a good thing, not a flaw (even if they have done it late).
"The real issue though is with piracy - check out Appulous' Installous. Same situation with the Sony PSP - a spanish chap ripped that OS completely out of the lockdowns Sony inflicted on everybody, and singlehandedly ended up creating a huge piracy problem for the platform that Sony can never control. Of course it was done in the name of liberal-ness and being able to write 'homebrew' apps, but I dont believe it for a second - especially what with his custom-firmware's inherent ability to copy and play ISO files of the UMD game disks, copying them to your memory stick."
It was bound to happen sooner or later, and let's face it, the PSP was a pretty stupid idea anyway.
"I think the same is happening with Installous, however piracy isn't going to be as big on the iPhone - the iPhone/Touch is aimed not at unscrupulous gamers alone - and titles are available so easily and cheaply from the AppStore - its considered a lot more hard work to go to the effort of 'full on' piracy."
Why are gamers unscrupulous? It's not considered a lot more hard work, it IS a lot more hard work to pirate games than to just download them. What's more to the point is, that people are stupid enough to pay the tariff for an iPhone, which means they're far more likely to be stupid enough to pay for crappy apps. Never mind that they mostly probably don't know what a torrent is, never mind let themselves be distracted long enough from their shiny phone to download one.
You annoy me.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
