‘Unauthorized’ iPhone App Stores: Paying thieves to steal?
In spite of the fact that more than 20,000 apps have sprouted in a matter of months and many developers have become rich virtually over night, there’s a pungently vocal minority that thinks that Apple has got it wrong.
The Wall Street Journal reports that a pair of virtual storefronts — Cydia Store and Rock Your Phone — selling software to iPhone users will soon open. Quite naturally these unofficial outlets — Cupertino probably thinks of them as illegal — will only available to folks that have jailbroken (see Pwnage tool) their Apple-branded handsets.
Whenever iPhone hackers talk about themselves, the self serving “sticking it to the man” and “setting the software free” hubris always flows freely. And, this time won’t be any different, so don’t be surprised to see the fart apps and virtual cigarette lighters Apple saw fit to reject appear on these unauthorized app stores.
Moreover, expect these flatulence peddlers to boldly label their warez as “rejected by the App Store,” as if being so pointless that even Apple refused them endows them with some sort of bad boy cred. Like the real iPhone App Store, there are going to be a lot garbage apps authored by people looking to cash on without putting out anything of value.
Honor among thieves?
So, do we really need to even talk about let alone take seriously people that have chosen names like “penisbird” and “salad fork”? Well, though Cydia and Rock Your Phone will undoubtedly be well stocked with garbage apps and not a few hubris spewing twits, hackers have created a number of applications that are very, very useful and should be bundled with the iPhone.
These are tools that were rejected by App Store censors on commercial grounds rather than Apple’s unknowable technical and taste rules. For example, PdaNet and other so-called tethering applications (see also: Cycoder) are already available to jailbroken iPhone users.
These are utilities that allow iPhone owners to use the phone connection, just like people do with land line hook ups, as a way to get on the internet — ie you have a phone, it should be useable as a way to get on the Internet — it’s just that simple. Unless, of course, you are AT&T, which demands to be paid again for that discreet usage (ie When is a phone not a phone?).
That said, is every act of thievery that follows in the wake of AT&T’s “the air that you breath” pricing forgiven and moral? Hmm, generally the first the question that needs asking when breaking new moral ground is, “Why not?”
What’s your take?
Related Posts:
March 9th, 2009
Theft is theft — no matter how “cool” you try
to make it. Tethering is a new service, and
should be charged for accordingly.
That’s fair — I use a lot more bandwidth from
my MBP than I do from my iPhone.
People not stop wanting something for nothing.
Sunny Guy
March 9th, 2009
wow, interesting post
March 10th, 2009
Tethering is a new service my arse.
My old monochrome Nokia had this cable that came with it, if you hook it up to your Serial port, it can be configure as a Modem and you can obtain internet that way.
Most of the Motorola lines can do that too.
the only difference between this little thing and those ones are that, you can easily configure your iPhone into a wireless router and have it forwarding packets from 3g networks to wifi networks.
My take on apple is that they don’t want their device to be ‘just another part of a standard computer’. They wanted to ‘replace’ the mobile computer.
March 12th, 2009
My question is why are they considered illegal and thieves? Because they are not condoned by Apple? I hardly consider that theft. If Apple is the ONLY ‘legit’ way to get software on the device, aren’t they a monopoly then? IF Apple is PREVENTING competitiong, isn’t THAT illegal? I think there are far bigger implications here than just some stupid iFart apps being sold by a means other than the iPhone store.