iPhone dev asks cracker to stop, cracker says to sit on it

Anybody here speaking up against this who has:

--Downloaded a copyrighted song via peer-to-peer
--Downloaded a copyrighted movie via peer-to-peer
--Downloaded any sort of cracked app
--Bonus x 5 if you have ever defended the act of illegally downloading music, movies, or software

Need to STFU and GBTW. I can't help but wonder how many people on a high horse in this thread have engaged in one form or another of piracy themselves...

"Oh, but it's indie developers, not music labels..." careful, your moral relativism is showing. Can't get away from Wal-Mart with an XBox game in your pants using that reasoning, can you? You just draw the line at a different place than an iPhone cracked app user. But you're both still wearing eye patches and saying "ARRRR."

There are plenty of hobby developers out there turning out great products for the joy of it, but in the cell phone market, it seems they're sadly absent, especially on the iPhone. Honestly the fact of apple's poor support on that front is why I haven't gone to iPhone yet, I'm perfectly happy with my Motorola RAZR 2, and Motorola offers their dev kits free of charge.

So more power to the hackers, the only way to secure an open development environment is to make control irrelevant.

I have to agree with previous posters comments suggesting the legality of 'jail breaking' tools is down to the application employed by the user.

My PSP runs custom firmware. While this theoretically allows me to 'pirate' games, this is not the primary reason for running custom firmware. In fact, it allows me to play all the games I *have* paid-for as images on the memory stick, saving me having to carry a bunch of UMDs around with me. It allows me to execute third-party tools and applications, making my PSP far more useful than it was intended to be. Thanks to custom firmware, my PSP plays video at the FULL, unrestricted resolution of the screen. It is a universal 'learning' infra-red remote, online flash video viewer, streaming media client, VNC client (yes, I can remote desktop from my PSP), document reader, mini/secondary PC display device, messenger client, and I can use my foldaway Targus keyboard with it. My old collection of PS1 games has been dusted off and converted for portability (all games that I own and have paid for). I have also, admittedly, used game images for which there is no suitable demo; if I like the game, I'll buy it, but if not, I'll delete the image and be glad that I didn't part with the ridiculous asking price for another crappy game that was never worth having.

That's just a snippet of all the things it can do once it has been unlocked - functionality and features unavailable to those still locked in official firmware. I don't care that I don't use the PSP for games much any more, with the subsequent projected losses in licensing for Sony, as the PSP would most likely be hugging a dusty if I hadn't found better things to do with it. I paid for the hardware. It's mine. I should be able to run anything I like on it.

If I can similarly unlock the full potential of my new 16GB iPhone (the first piece of Apple hardware I would ever have dreamed of admitting ownership of), then I'm going for it; no shame, no guilt, no qualms, and no intention to defraud developers.

It's called free will, and I have it.

News flash, an iPhone and the applications are not a requirement to survive, in fact they are a luxury. Apple and At&t have set the rules, if you don't like them then don't buy the product.

If you think laws/rules are arbitrary and can be applied to fit your needs you should publish your address and allow others do with your stuff as they please. Oh and don't complain when you are left with nothing because it was all taken by those who, like you, feel laws/rules are arbitrary.

Any justification made for a jailbroken iPhone, cracked application, etc. is nothing more then a person lying to themselves in an attempt to justify their actions. Again if you don't like the rules, then stay out of the game.

As a jailbreaker myself, i'd like to say that if anyone thinks that jailbreaking is a "breeding ground" for cracked apps is completely misinformed.

I have jailbroken since 1.1.1 and love it. Not once have I been tempted to crack an app since the 2.0 release. I have done some some research and found that cracked app repos are hard to find. The process is buggy and has some failures. And that some cracks are in fact viruses (yes they do exist for iphones).

I know of many others, online and friends, who don't crack apps. Whole communities of people are against it.

Ipod touch fans is against it. Anyone who talks about it gets banned and told off by many members.

It's not the done thing. That's all i'm saying

I jailbroke my iPhone because I wanted to use it on a non-O2 network. Plus I needed to install perl and a webserver to run my wikinotes script. I've bought loads of apps on iTunes, some of them were complete shit. This has actually put me off buying other apps because I can't be sure they're suitable for my needs, I have just gone without, I don't go and use cracked ones even though I felt ripped off. Your generalisation of everyone that jailbreaks being thieves is actually quite offensive. Basically you are an ignorant prat.

Nice. You know, it feels like a lot of people here 1) have no idea what jailbrake is for, 2) never had buyer's remorse, 3) never return stuff back to the seller when they didn't like it.

Number 3 here is relevant because there's no return option for the App Store. And, unlike desktop software and music, I believe that Apple could easily implement that. iPhone has a kill switch that allows Apple to remove apps from your phone. Imagine, that when you return the app it would be deleted from iTunes and iPhone and transaction record would be removed/modified in a way that you will have to pay again if you decide to buy it after return. That's, of course, wouldn't work with jailbroken devices (and that why I love jailbrake and iPhone Dev Team - it's MY phone and MY rules, not Apple's).

Of course, I use cracked apps and let me give you my statistics: of more that 200 apps I installed I only use 5 or 10 of them. Why? Because 95% of App Store apps are utter crap. I install them, use them for 1 minute and remove them for good. If I've paid for all those apps I'd already spend more that $200 in exchange for nothing. And that's why Apple should make trial system. If I can't get my money back for crap - I just won't risk and go to appulous for "trial".

Think for a second how would it be if say Marshall's or Kmart or even Apple themselves would tell you that you can't return stuff for any reason - be it defective or useless. Would you like it? The only difference here is that I can't pirate physical goodies (too bad).

And for developers: I am currently a part of devteam and we're going to release a paid app for the app store. And if people like it - it will be pirated. And I don't care.

I don't have a problem with jailbreaking. It's like buying a car and taking it home to tinker with. Ford or Toyota might not like you putting that nitrous kit in the car and it will certainly void your warranty, but what you do with it is more or less your business.

Running cracked apps is a different story. Now it's like you're putting in a stolen stereo system. Yeah, it may be a crap system and you may think the makers are idiots and the retail price is plain rip-off, but at the end of the day it's still a stolen stereo.

On a different note, if I were Apple, I would put out an announcement that the fix for the DRM problem, whatever it may be and whenever it does comes out, will also scan the host device for existing pirated content. If found, the phone will automatically send an email to the offender's parents on what a naughty boy he/she has been...

And LH, don't be dumb.

The effect is not at all the same for the music industry as it is for the home-based small time developer. Clearly you've never been on the receiving end of this abuse - you can't watch the torrent count from ONE cracker app site ratchet up to 80 within a few hours while watching you App Store count creep up to 40 over a weekend and not draw a line to loss in sales.

To all people who valiantly download cracked apps to "stick it to the man" - who do you really think you're fooling?

If you want to be all self-righteous about punishing Apple, how about not buying an iPhone and not using the apps? GASP! You can't do that! After all, how else would you impress your sycophantic little cronies with the latest technology with the raddest apps?

No, instead, you steal from developers. People who work hard to get quality apps into the store ('cause we know you aren't stealing the crappy ones...). Stealing from the developers means one of two things - either people put out free ad-supported apps to garner some sort of income; or people stop putting in the time and effort because they'll just get ripped off. Neither is a good solution.

A few things that strike me:

The part about how apps with free ad-supported versions are still getting ripped off (there goes your "need to try before you buy" line of crap); and that people claim most of the people who download cracked versions try them out, then go back to the App Store to buy.... RIIIIIIGHT. You only need about a 70 point IQ to realize that's a line of self-justifying bullsheet.


If you really have a problem with the way the App Store is run, and you want to help the developers gain exposure to quality apps, how about this...

For starters, how about you NOT STEAL anything. Create a trial site where developers submit their apps, or trial versions of their apps. You can either charge a nominal fee to the developers for the exposure, or you can set up a revenue model based on 3rd party advertising. That way, they developers actually DO approve, no one's stealing anything, people get to check out apps, and Apple doesn't gain extra revenue off the craptastic apps on there. Most importantly, developers are given the opportunity to control THEIR OWN property. Not be ripped off then told they should thank the thieves and the people giving the thieves a place to stash their loot.

Get off your "Apple is evil" high horse. Flawed as it is, at least the App Store generates revenue for the devs. Stealing the apps, or creating a website that endorses stealing apps (don't even think your fooling anyone with your bs about "we don't monitor content and rely on posters to be honest") just makes you a tw@t.