There are a lot of idiots who jailbreak and do stupid things only to then say "it was too unstable so I restored", but if you spend some time to learn what you're doing, you can end up with a much better system.
I think that was pointed at me, I really had no reason to Jailbreak my device to begin with as I just use it for music creation. I'm very intelligent when it comes to hacking and customizing my devices, I compile my own version of Android. I really just wanted to try it and when I did a few of my apps crashed frequently and as I use the iPad to pretty much do a single important task I didn't feel the need to continue experimenting. I agree with your assessment that if you spend the time you can have a much better system though, my post above covers the advantages.
I think that was pointed at me, I really had no reason to Jailbreak my device to begin with as I just use it for music creation. I'm very intelligent when it comes to hacking and customizing my devices, I compile my own version of Android. I really just wanted to try it and when I did a few of my apps crashed frequently and as I use the iPad to pretty much do a single important task I didn't feel the need to continue experimenting. I agree with your assessment that if you spend the time you can have a much better system though, my post above covers the advantages.
No, sorry, that wasn't pointed at you at all. I was referring to people I see who have their sole iOS device, usually a relied upon iPhone, and jailbreak it on day 1, and then go into Cydia as if every tweak is supposed to be installed. I'll then see them ranting and raving about problems they're having only to then see them give up and make claims about how unstable jailbroken devices are, or even problem with jailbreaking itself (because they tried it on day 1).
I do see people who go and jailbreak, and are left with a "is that all there is?" and restore back as well. There's nothing wrong with that either.
Customers can complain about a developer purposely not supporting the iPad 1 or iPhone 3GS but the developer can choose what they want to support. If they don't want to support hacked firmwares, that's their choice.
Developers have to make an assumption one way or the other. If a significant number of people jailbreaking do so to pirate (there was an estimate in 2010 put it around 40% of jailbreakers) then they need a deterrent and putting these measures in is a deterrent because it means people who steal the game have to wait for it to be patched. Apple wants to deter customers from jailbreaking and this has a similar effect.
There are very few legitimate reasons for jailbreaking these days. Avoiding paying for tethering certainly isn't one nor is avoiding paying Apple the developer fee.
They are certainly free to choose to do this, but it's a very foolish decision on their part. Your cited estimate of 40% in 2010 was heavily flawed, and misquoted. We'll post this again... You don't need to jailbreak to pirate apps. You have never needed to jailbreak to pirate apps on iOS. It's easier not to jailbreak if you're solely interested in pirating apps. The same is true for game cheating.
What they've done isn't a deterrent at all. You only get this issue if you're already on a jailbroken device. A person in that state is faced with options:
1) Forget about the game.
2) Forget about your jailbreak and restore.
3) Patch the game.
4) Pirate the game.
The patch and a cracked version of this game (available to pirate) were already available before this article even posted. There is a jailbreak tweak called xCon which many people have installed already because Deus Ex wasn't the first to do this (by far). Anyone with xCon already installed and updated, wouldn't even know Deus Ex had done this. Likewise, anyone who pirated Deus Ex whether they were jailbroken or not, wouldn't have ran into this problem.
As far as legitimate reasons for jailbreaking these days... I've purchased a ton of tweaks and apps through Cydia, and there are a bunch of free tweaks and apps as well. You may not be interested in the reasons, but you can't say they don't exist, just Google "top jailbreak tweaks" or look at YouTube videos dedicated to this.
As far as tethering... I'm not sure if you mean that was ever a legitimate reason to jailbreak. If you do, then the reason still exists. If you don't, then I'm with you as I'd consider theft of service to be just as bad as theft of apps. However, even with a tethering plan, some of those tethering apps in Cydia offer features and functionality that aren't theft of service.
Jailbreaking an iPad or touch is100% illegal no questions about it. Downloading a AppStore app to a jailbroken phone is 100% illegal. Once you jailbreak a device it is no longer an authorized Apple device.
There are lots of questions regarding jailbreaking an iPad.
1) What countries are we talking about?
2) In the US, what would happen if someone were charged with this? Nobody ever has, and if they were, there would be all kinds of legal challenges.
3) Does the Library of Congress have the authority to make the laws it has? (this hasn't been ruled on yet)
The only reason why the iPad wasn't included in the explicit exemption is because the definition of a tablet wasn't established during the window during which they review exemptions. However, the same reasons that make jailbreaking an iPhone an exemption, clearly make jailbreaking an iPad an exemption.
As far as downloading an app fro the Apple App Store to a jailbroken device being illegal, I have no idea where you're getting this from, but you're wrong. If you think you're correct, please cite the law.
Most people who Jailbreak do so to add features like a filemanager, fast toogles to disable things like Wifi and Bluetooth, turn on full multitasking (run apps in the background) for all of your apps not just the Apple approved ones, install Unix software like Perl, PHP and Pyhthon, heck even a LAMP server, create folders in folders which is great for categories, install the iSwipe keyboard, activate hotspot without paying for it, even change the default web browser, the list goes on and on.
Where are the stats for how many people are jailbreaking for utilities to be able to claim that "most" people are doing it for legitimate reasons? The file manager that is paid for through Cydia has even been cracked and stolen. Over 700,000 downloads of Angry Birds in one store suggests that quite a lot of people are jailbreaking to steal apps.
The Chinese site for getting cracked apps is only available in China, which makes piracy numbers even worse because it suggests that Appcake etc are mainly used by Western countries. The Chinese site claims to have had 5 million users getting apps:
They are certainly free to choose to do this, but it's a very foolish decision on their part.
The only foolish decision they made was not saying that it didn't work properly on jailbroken devices at launch (they only added the message later) because it means people would be able to ask for a refund. They've recently said they will update the app to allow it to run properly on jailbroken devices.
The number of evasion downloads is 23 million so 10 million in 2010 looks pretty reasonable. If anything, it was more likely an overestimate, which would put the piracy ratio higher.
The Chinese site for getting cracked apps is only available in China, which makes piracy numbers even worse because it suggests that Appcake etc are mainly used by Western countries. The Chinese site claims to have had 5 million users getting apps:
You could easily circumvent that by accessing the site threw a Chinese proxy, not condoning just saying.
The only foolish decision they made was not saying that it didn't work properly on jailbroken devices at launch (they only added the message later) because it means people would be able to ask for a refund. They've recently said they will update the app to allow it to run properly on jailbroken devices.
It really didn't matter as a solution was spreading through the internet the very same day the app was released.
Jailbreaking an iPad or touch is100% illegal no questions about it. Downloading a AppStore app to a jailbroken phone is 100% illegal. Once you jailbreak a device it is no longer an authorized Apple device.
You're completely wrong. Why bother posting when you have no clue what you're talking about?
'App Store' is the correct formatting. And there is no such thing as an authorized Apple device.
Also, downloading an App Store app to a jail broken device is in no way illegal. You've paid for it, you can download it.
Where are the stats for how many people are jailbreaking for utilities to be able to claim that "most" people are doing it for legitimate reasons? The file manager that is paid for through Cydia has even been cracked and stolen. Over 700,000 downloads of Angry Birds in one store suggests that quite a lot of people are jailbreaking to steal apps.
No, it shows a site that is saying it has had over 700K downloads of Angry Birds. Has it, because surely no disreputable site would ever lie about that number. Of those downloads, how many were actually installed? Of those that were installed, how many were on jailbroken devices (again, you don't have to jailbreak to pirate apps). Of those that were installed on jailbroken devices, how many were not later purchased, or had already been purchased but the user downloaded a cracked version for some reason (like compatibility).
"suggests that quite a lot of people are jailbreaking to steal apps"
No, if the number is true, it suggest that a lot of app stealing has taken place. It says nothing about how many jailbreakers stole (because again, you don't have to jailbreak to pirate apps). And most importantly, it doesn't say anything in regards to why those people jailbroke. They may have jailbroken for hundreds of reasons, but then stole an app.
See, that's just it... Apptrckr is no more, and there's a false assumption that those who installed it, used it for piracy, and used it for piracy that they otherwise wouldn't have committed had they not jailbroke. Even the author suggests that the numbers from Apptrckr could be in error and that they don't necessarily reflect the amount of piracy that is taking place.
But again, the main point here on why the developers were foolish to do this is because all it did was piss off those who jailbroke and paid for the the game. Those people could just of easily installed xCon (which tricks apps into thinking the device is not jailbroken) or they could've installed a cracked version of the app.
It's like saying... "we identify this group as being likely to pirate, even they bought our game, but since they're likely to pirate, let's restrict them in our game that we know they paid for; leaving that group with the easiest option being to pirate our game" What did they expect was going to happen?
You could easily circumvent that by accessing the site threw a Chinese proxy, not condoning just saying.
Do you think that millions of people are funnelling their internet traffic through Chinese proxies? All you're suggesting here anyway is that piracy is higher than the already significant portion of the jailbreak community engaged in it. If the Chinese site was taken down, the millions using it would resort to jailbreaking in order to achieve the same result.
It really didn't matter as a solution was spreading through the internet the very same day the app was released.
It seems so, on Appcake it's up to 10,000 downloads just since yesterday - the xCon workaround is on the app page. Some won't have noticed it or have been aware of xCon.
No, it shows a site that is saying it has had over 700K downloads of Angry Birds. Has it, because surely no disreputable site would ever lie about that number. Of those downloads, how many were actually installed? Of those that were installed, how many were on jailbroken devices (again, you don't have to jailbreak to pirate apps). Of those that were installed on jailbroken devices, how many were not later purchased, or had already been purchased but the user downloaded a cracked version for some reason (like compatibility).
Those are questions for you to provide the answers to. I'm showing you evidence that many people who jailbreak do in fact pirate apps. If you have evidence rather than hypotheticals to the contrary then provide it.
The usual justifications are exactly the same for the XBox and PS3 e.g these people just want to run Linux on it or play backed up copies of purchased games and then claim this is what most people are doing with their hacked firmwares.
I'm aware that a significant portion of jailbreakers do modify their phone UIs and use tethering apps to avoid paying phone companies extra and there's a significant portion that steals apps. Regardless of whether or not they should be tarred with the same brush, they are all breaking someone's terms of service and every game publisher has a right to implement measures that at the very least raises publicity around the issue of jailbreaking and piracy in order that people who do jailbreak and don't pirate take a stronger stance against piracy.
If they lose business as a result, that's their choice to make. Given that people who don't jailbreak outnumber those who do by about 10:1 or more, I don't think they will suffer for their decision.
Do you think that millions of people are funnelling their internet traffic through Chinese proxies? All you're suggesting here anyway is that piracy is higher than the already significant portion of the jailbreak community engaged in it. If the Chinese site was taken down, the millions using it would resort to jailbreaking in order to achieve the same result.
You brought up the Chinese sight, I didn't even know that one existed. There are many others worldwide not just the one you found in China, to get to them all you need to do sign up to one of the many iOS hacker forums on the subject. Most are roaming meaning they change IP addresses regularly but all you need to do is check the boards the day you want to steal apps. Have you ever looked at the Jailbroken app that steals, it's riddled with non-functioning versions and non-working download sites, it's the worst way to get pirated apps, not to mention the selection of apps is dismal.
Look, I don't condone this behaviour in any way but I really think you're misinformed here, as an experiment go try it yourself, just try and download and install say Pages, I guarantee you will come back saying, "well that's a pretty worthless app".
Those who download pirated apps don't normally use a Jailbroken iPad, if they do their not getting much or anything worth doing it again.
You do have to jailbreak to download apps from that store.
Again, no you don't these cracker sites including the Chinese one that you mentioned use the, "Enterprise Licensing Technology" to install apps. This Chinese site seems to be very public about it that's why they were found out but this sort of thing has been happening for a while now.
You do have to jailbreak to download apps from that store.
Again, no you don't these cracker sites including the Chinese one that you mentioned use the, "Enterprise Licensing Technology" to install apps. This Chinese site seems to be very public about it that's why they were found out but this sort of thing has been happening for a while now.
Appcake has its own Cydia app and a guide for jalbreaking on the site - the other stores have Cydia apps too. They wouldn't need those if they installed apps the same way as the Chinese sites.
One of the developers who setup a method to install apps without jailbreaking spoke out against piracy and has tried to prevent his software being used for it:
"Immediately after announcing that he would no longer make it easy to pirate apps with Zeusmos, Uhelios was inundated with refund requests from users who flat out told him that they purchased his app simply to pirate apps from the App Store. The Zeusmos website and access to the current tool have been pulled, and an announcement was made that an update would be released that would remove the features he no longer felt were appropriate. Zeusmos would return to be a code signing tool for developers who wanted to test their apps outside of the Apple ecosystem."
What I'd like to know, as a developer myself, is how they detect that the device is jailbroken.
Ah, I forget the details, but Apple did this earlier. They run a check by putting code in the app that sees if the device can install a dummy app that isn't signed by the App Store. If so, it returns yes, and that yes allows the real app to make changes.
Jailbreaking an iPad or touch is100% illegal no questions about it. Downloading a AppStore app to a jailbroken phone is 100% illegal. Once you jailbreak a device it is no longer an authorized Apple device.
Totally wrong.
Jailbreaking is legal.
Downloading a free App Store app to a jailbroken device is legal.
Downloading a paid App Store app to a jailbroken device after having paid for it is legal.
Downloading a paid App Store app to a jailbroken device after having not paid for it is illegal.
Appcake has its own Cydia app and a guide for jalbreaking on the site - the other stores have Cydia apps too. They wouldn't need those if they installed apps the same way as the Chinese sites.
One of the developers who setup a method to install apps without jailbreaking spoke out against piracy and has tried to prevent his software being used for it:
"Immediately after announcing that he would no longer make it easy to pirate apps with Zeusmos, Uhelios was inundated with refund requests from users who flat out told him that they purchased his app simply to pirate apps from the App Store. The Zeusmos website and access to the current tool have been pulled, and an announcement was made that an update would be released that would remove the features he no longer felt were appropriate. Zeusmos would return to be a code signing tool for developers who wanted to test their apps outside of the Apple ecosystem."
Well there you go, so jailbreaking your iPad for the intent of downloading and installing pirated apps is one step closer to being a pipe dream. This is great news.
Those are questions for you to provide the answers to. I'm showing you evidence that many people who jailbreak do in fact pirate apps. If you have evidence rather than hypotheticals to the contrary then provide it.
No, those are questions for you. You are the one claiming 40% of jailbreakers do so to pirate. You provided that to show as evidence, but it clearly doesn't prove anything as you can't answer those questions.
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The usual justifications are exactly the same for the XBox and PS3 e.g these people just want to run Linux on it or play backed up copies of purchased games and then claim this is what most people are doing with their hacked firmwares.
No, not at all. Unlike the Xbox and PS3, there are a huge number of commercial and free apps available for jailbroken devices. There are a huge number of tweaks and themes and other things you can do with a jailbroken device. I'm pointing out that you don't know much about the subject of jailbreaking iOS devices, and it clearly shows, because you're not reporting on anything from the community. Go look at http://www.reddit.com/r/jailbreak/, and you'll learn a lot about why people jailbreak. And while you're there, try counting the number of piracy related posts and comments (if you can even find any).
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Regardless of whether or not they should be tarred with the same brush, they are all breaking someone's terms of service
But that's just it, stealing is objectively bad. Breaking terms of service is not inherently bad. They are literally term-of-service, breaking them isn't a violation of law, and for good reason.
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every game publisher has a right to implement measures that at the very least raises publicity around the issue of jailbreaking and piracy in order that people who do jailbreak and don't pirate take a stronger stance against piracy.
Of course they have that right, I've never said they didn't. However, I have said it was a very foolish thing to do, it does nothing to prevent either jailbreaking or piracy and actually encourages people who would otherwise buy the game, to pirate it to prevent putting up with their restriction.
As far as people who do jailbreak and don't pirate, again, check out the largest community on the net in regards to jailbreaking. I dare you to post something positive about piracy. You will be pounced upon.
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If they lose business as a result, that's their choice to make. Given that people who don't jailbreak outnumber those who do by about 10:1 or more, I don't think they will suffer for their decision.
Yes, again, it's their right to make stupid decisions. But according to your made up statistic, that means they prevented 10% of their customers from playing the non-pirated version of their game and if you look at the app store reviews ended up with a lot of single-star negative reviews.
Look, we're both strongly anti-piracy. And I'm pro-jailbreak, you're anti-jailbreak, but regardless of either of those two things, you have to admit, their actions, despite having every right to do so, were foolish in terms of the results they were looking for.
Really, what they should've done was encrypt their .plist files, and continued to release frequent updates while still maintaining their more than reasonable price for the game.
I say this as a developer myself... The best course of action is not to piss off any segment of your customers. Look for alternative revenue options, and provide the best value possible. In the end, there will always be pirates, but don't cut off your nose to spite your face.
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You do have to jailbreak to download apps from that store.
No, those are questions for you. You are the one claiming 40% of jailbreakers do so to pirate. You provided that to show as evidence, but it clearly doesn't prove anything as you can't answer those questions.
You suggest that the numbers don't indicate jailbreakers are pirates by saying maybe they're not all bad and buying eventually. Developers have not found that to be the case. You can justify any form of theft with hypotheticals e.g 'that guy stole a car. Well, maybe he'll use the money he makes from it to start a business and eventually pay society back'. The act of downloading a file via these sites is theft and a significant portion of people who jailbreak are doing it. If that wasn't the case, Appcake, ipastore etc wouldn't be on Cydia and if jailbreakers were so against it, those apps would be banned from Cydia.
If jailbreakers are against piracy, why don't they ban piracy apps and sources from Cydia?
However, I have said it was a very foolish thing to do, it does nothing to prevent either jailbreaking or piracy and actually encourages people who would otherwise buy the game, to pirate it to prevent putting up with their restriction.
If they choose to pirate rather than restore an Apple firmware then that just shows that jailbreakers tend more towards piracy than not.
As far as people who do jailbreak and don't pirate, again, check out the largest community on the net in regards to jailbreaking. I dare you to post something positive about piracy. You will be pounced upon.
Ok but if you go to a piracy community you won't be. Look at the Appcake forum, it says 159,000 members - 4.5x more than Reddit and that's just one community.
according to your made up statistic, that means they prevented 10% of their customers from playing the non-pirated version of their game and if you look at the app store reviews ended up with a lot of single-star negative reviews.
That's assuming the 10% would be paying and they won't be. It doesn't matter if a few jailbreakers are leaving negative reviews. The system requirements at the side say the game is compatible with iOS 5 or later. People with jailbroken phones aren't running iOS 5 or later, they're running a hacked firmware so their system doesn't meet the system requirements and have no right to complain.
Look, we're both strongly anti-piracy. And I'm pro-jailbreak, you're anti-jailbreak, but regardless of either of those two things, you have to admit, their actions, despite having every right to do so, were foolish in terms of the results they were looking for.
I'm not against people jailbreaking their devices, I'm against people thinking they have a right to complain about consequences of the choices they make and think that other people should accommodate those choices.
All the developers have done here is state openly that they don't support jailbroken iOS. If they are implying that jailbreakers are pirates (which they didn't say explicitly), then it encourages the jailbreak community to either stand up against piracy or openly support piracy. If they stand up against it then that has a positive effect. If they turn round and support it, that just proves they were right to try and prevent the game running properly on jailbroken devices.
There's no negative effect for the developers because nobody cares that jailbreakers are upset at paying for a game that doesn't work properly. That's a consequence of a choice they made. If I hacked an XBox to play unofficial copies of games and a new game didn't work on it, I have absolutely no right to complain about it.
Comments
I think that was pointed at me, I really had no reason to Jailbreak my device to begin with as I just use it for music creation. I'm very intelligent when it comes to hacking and customizing my devices, I compile my own version of Android. I really just wanted to try it and when I did a few of my apps crashed frequently and as I use the iPad to pretty much do a single important task I didn't feel the need to continue experimenting. I agree with your assessment that if you spend the time you can have a much better system though, my post above covers the advantages.
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Originally Posted by Relic
I think that was pointed at me, I really had no reason to Jailbreak my device to begin with as I just use it for music creation. I'm very intelligent when it comes to hacking and customizing my devices, I compile my own version of Android. I really just wanted to try it and when I did a few of my apps crashed frequently and as I use the iPad to pretty much do a single important task I didn't feel the need to continue experimenting. I agree with your assessment that if you spend the time you can have a much better system though, my post above covers the advantages.
No, sorry, that wasn't pointed at you at all. I was referring to people I see who have their sole iOS device, usually a relied upon iPhone, and jailbreak it on day 1, and then go into Cydia as if every tweak is supposed to be installed. I'll then see them ranting and raving about problems they're having only to then see them give up and make claims about how unstable jailbroken devices are, or even problem with jailbreaking itself (because they tried it on day 1).
I do see people who go and jailbreak, and are left with a "is that all there is?" and restore back as well. There's nothing wrong with that either.
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Originally Posted by Marvin
Customers can complain about a developer purposely not supporting the iPad 1 or iPhone 3GS but the developer can choose what they want to support. If they don't want to support hacked firmwares, that's their choice.
Developers have to make an assumption one way or the other. If a significant number of people jailbreaking do so to pirate (there was an estimate in 2010 put it around 40% of jailbreakers) then they need a deterrent and putting these measures in is a deterrent because it means people who steal the game have to wait for it to be patched. Apple wants to deter customers from jailbreaking and this has a similar effect.
There are very few legitimate reasons for jailbreaking these days. Avoiding paying for tethering certainly isn't one nor is avoiding paying Apple the developer fee.
They are certainly free to choose to do this, but it's a very foolish decision on their part. Your cited estimate of 40% in 2010 was heavily flawed, and misquoted. We'll post this again... You don't need to jailbreak to pirate apps. You have never needed to jailbreak to pirate apps on iOS. It's easier not to jailbreak if you're solely interested in pirating apps. The same is true for game cheating.
What they've done isn't a deterrent at all. You only get this issue if you're already on a jailbroken device. A person in that state is faced with options:
1) Forget about the game.
2) Forget about your jailbreak and restore.
3) Patch the game.
4) Pirate the game.
The patch and a cracked version of this game (available to pirate) were already available before this article even posted. There is a jailbreak tweak called xCon which many people have installed already because Deus Ex wasn't the first to do this (by far). Anyone with xCon already installed and updated, wouldn't even know Deus Ex had done this. Likewise, anyone who pirated Deus Ex whether they were jailbroken or not, wouldn't have ran into this problem.
As far as legitimate reasons for jailbreaking these days... I've purchased a ton of tweaks and apps through Cydia, and there are a bunch of free tweaks and apps as well. You may not be interested in the reasons, but you can't say they don't exist, just Google "top jailbreak tweaks" or look at YouTube videos dedicated to this.
As far as tethering... I'm not sure if you mean that was ever a legitimate reason to jailbreak. If you do, then the reason still exists. If you don't, then I'm with you as I'd consider theft of service to be just as bad as theft of apps. However, even with a tethering plan, some of those tethering apps in Cydia offer features and functionality that aren't theft of service.
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Originally Posted by Drealoth
Jailbreaking is explicitly, 100% legal (although it voids your warranty): http://www.cultofmac.com/52463/apples-official-response-to-dmca-jailbreak-exemption-it-voids-your-warranty/52463/
That should be "Apple says, 'it can void your warranty'".
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Originally Posted by TRRosen
Jailbreaking an iPad or touch is100% illegal no questions about it. Downloading a AppStore app to a jailbroken phone is 100% illegal. Once you jailbreak a device it is no longer an authorized Apple device.
There are lots of questions regarding jailbreaking an iPad.
1) What countries are we talking about?
2) In the US, what would happen if someone were charged with this? Nobody ever has, and if they were, there would be all kinds of legal challenges.
3) Does the Library of Congress have the authority to make the laws it has? (this hasn't been ruled on yet)
The only reason why the iPad wasn't included in the explicit exemption is because the definition of a tablet wasn't established during the window during which they review exemptions. However, the same reasons that make jailbreaking an iPhone an exemption, clearly make jailbreaking an iPad an exemption.
As far as downloading an app fro the Apple App Store to a jailbroken device being illegal, I have no idea where you're getting this from, but you're wrong. If you think you're correct, please cite the law.
Where are the stats for how many people are jailbreaking for utilities to be able to claim that "most" people are doing it for legitimate reasons? The file manager that is paid for through Cydia has even been cracked and stolen. Over 700,000 downloads of Angry Birds in one store suggests that quite a lot of people are jailbreaking to steal apps.
The Chinese site for getting cracked apps is only available in China, which makes piracy numbers even worse because it suggests that Appcake etc are mainly used by Western countries. The Chinese site claims to have had 5 million users getting apps:
http://www.dailytech.com/Chinese+Store+Selling+Pirated+iOS+Apps+Without+Need+for+Jailbreak+Blames+iTunes+for+its+Existence/article30386.htm
That store only launched in April this year.
The only foolish decision they made was not saying that it didn't work properly on jailbroken devices at launch (they only added the message later) because it means people would be able to ask for a refund. They've recently said they will update the app to allow it to run properly on jailbroken devices.
It looks like a realistic estimate:
http://www.mobile-ent.biz/news/read/4m-ios-users-have-installed-apptrckr-piracy-app/011001
The number of evasion downloads is 23 million so 10 million in 2010 looks pretty reasonable. If anything, it was more likely an overestimate, which would put the piracy ratio higher.
You could easily circumvent that by accessing the site threw a Chinese proxy, not condoning just saying.
It really didn't matter as a solution was spreading through the internet the very same day the app was released.
'App Store' is the correct formatting. And there is no such thing as an authorized Apple device.
Also, downloading an App Store app to a jail broken device is in no way illegal. You've paid for it, you can download it.
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Originally Posted by Marvin
Where are the stats for how many people are jailbreaking for utilities to be able to claim that "most" people are doing it for legitimate reasons? The file manager that is paid for through Cydia has even been cracked and stolen. Over 700,000 downloads of Angry Birds in one store suggests that quite a lot of people are jailbreaking to steal apps.
No, it shows a site that is saying it has had over 700K downloads of Angry Birds. Has it, because surely no disreputable site would ever lie about that number. Of those downloads, how many were actually installed? Of those that were installed, how many were on jailbroken devices (again, you don't have to jailbreak to pirate apps). Of those that were installed on jailbroken devices, how many were not later purchased, or had already been purchased but the user downloaded a cracked version for some reason (like compatibility).
"suggests that quite a lot of people are jailbreaking to steal apps"
No, if the number is true, it suggest that a lot of app stealing has taken place. It says nothing about how many jailbreakers stole (because again, you don't have to jailbreak to pirate apps). And most importantly, it doesn't say anything in regards to why those people jailbroke. They may have jailbroken for hundreds of reasons, but then stole an app.
"http://www.dailytech.com/Chinese+Store+Selling+Pirated+iOS+Apps+Without+Need+for+Jailbreak+Blames+iTunes+for+its+Existence/article30386.htm"
This is really funny because the very URL you cite contains the words "Without Need for Jailbreak".
"http://www.mobile-ent.biz/news/read/4m-ios-users-have-installed-apptrckr-piracy-app/011001"
See, that's just it... Apptrckr is no more, and there's a false assumption that those who installed it, used it for piracy, and used it for piracy that they otherwise wouldn't have committed had they not jailbroke. Even the author suggests that the numbers from Apptrckr could be in error and that they don't necessarily reflect the amount of piracy that is taking place.
But again, the main point here on why the developers were foolish to do this is because all it did was piss off those who jailbroke and paid for the the game. Those people could just of easily installed xCon (which tricks apps into thinking the device is not jailbroken) or they could've installed a cracked version of the app.
It's like saying... "we identify this group as being likely to pirate, even they bought our game, but since they're likely to pirate, let's restrict them in our game that we know they paid for; leaving that group with the easiest option being to pirate our game" What did they expect was going to happen?
Do you think that millions of people are funnelling their internet traffic through Chinese proxies? All you're suggesting here anyway is that piracy is higher than the already significant portion of the jailbreak community engaged in it. If the Chinese site was taken down, the millions using it would resort to jailbreaking in order to achieve the same result.
It seems so, on Appcake it's up to 10,000 downloads just since yesterday - the xCon workaround is on the app page. Some won't have noticed it or have been aware of xCon.
Those are questions for you to provide the answers to. I'm showing you evidence that many people who jailbreak do in fact pirate apps. If you have evidence rather than hypotheticals to the contrary then provide it.
The usual justifications are exactly the same for the XBox and PS3 e.g these people just want to run Linux on it or play backed up copies of purchased games and then claim this is what most people are doing with their hacked firmwares.
I'm aware that a significant portion of jailbreakers do modify their phone UIs and use tethering apps to avoid paying phone companies extra and there's a significant portion that steals apps. Regardless of whether or not they should be tarred with the same brush, they are all breaking someone's terms of service and every game publisher has a right to implement measures that at the very least raises publicity around the issue of jailbreaking and piracy in order that people who do jailbreak and don't pirate take a stronger stance against piracy.
If they lose business as a result, that's their choice to make. Given that people who don't jailbreak outnumber those who do by about 10:1 or more, I don't think they will suffer for their decision.
You do have to jailbreak to download apps from that store.
You brought up the Chinese sight, I didn't even know that one existed. There are many others worldwide not just the one you found in China, to get to them all you need to do sign up to one of the many iOS hacker forums on the subject. Most are roaming meaning they change IP addresses regularly but all you need to do is check the boards the day you want to steal apps. Have you ever looked at the Jailbroken app that steals, it's riddled with non-functioning versions and non-working download sites, it's the worst way to get pirated apps, not to mention the selection of apps is dismal.
Look, I don't condone this behaviour in any way but I really think you're misinformed here, as an experiment go try it yourself, just try and download and install say Pages, I guarantee you will come back saying, "well that's a pretty worthless app".
Those who download pirated apps don't normally use a Jailbroken iPad, if they do their not getting much or anything worth doing it again.
Again, no you don't these cracker sites including the Chinese one that you mentioned use the, "Enterprise Licensing Technology" to install apps. This Chinese site seems to be very public about it that's why they were found out but this sort of thing has been happening for a while now.
Appcake has its own Cydia app and a guide for jalbreaking on the site - the other stores have Cydia apps too. They wouldn't need those if they installed apps the same way as the Chinese sites.
One of the developers who setup a method to install apps without jailbreaking spoke out against piracy and has tried to prevent his software being used for it:
http://www.geek.com/mobile/zeusmos-creator-follows-installous-ceases-piracy-features-for-ios-1534413/
"Immediately after announcing that he would no longer make it easy to pirate apps with Zeusmos, Uhelios was inundated with refund requests from users who flat out told him that they purchased his app simply to pirate apps from the App Store. The Zeusmos website and access to the current tool have been pulled, and an announcement was made that an update would be released that would remove the features he no longer felt were appropriate. Zeusmos would return to be a code signing tool for developers who wanted to test their apps outside of the Apple ecosystem."
Shut up and go away.
Ah, I forget the details, but Apple did this earlier. They run a check by putting code in the app that sees if the device can install a dummy app that isn't signed by the App Store. If so, it returns yes, and that yes allows the real app to make changes.
Totally wrong.
Jailbreaking is legal.
Downloading a free App Store app to a jailbroken device is legal.
Downloading a paid App Store app to a jailbroken device after having paid for it is legal.
Downloading a paid App Store app to a jailbroken device after having not paid for it is illegal.
Well there you go, so jailbreaking your iPad for the intent of downloading and installing pirated apps is one step closer to being a pipe dream. This is great news.
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Originally Posted by Marvin
Those are questions for you to provide the answers to. I'm showing you evidence that many people who jailbreak do in fact pirate apps. If you have evidence rather than hypotheticals to the contrary then provide it.
No, those are questions for you. You are the one claiming 40% of jailbreakers do so to pirate. You provided that to show as evidence, but it clearly doesn't prove anything as you can't answer those questions.
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The usual justifications are exactly the same for the XBox and PS3 e.g these people just want to run Linux on it or play backed up copies of purchased games and then claim this is what most people are doing with their hacked firmwares.
No, not at all. Unlike the Xbox and PS3, there are a huge number of commercial and free apps available for jailbroken devices. There are a huge number of tweaks and themes and other things you can do with a jailbroken device. I'm pointing out that you don't know much about the subject of jailbreaking iOS devices, and it clearly shows, because you're not reporting on anything from the community. Go look at http://www.reddit.com/r/jailbreak/, and you'll learn a lot about why people jailbreak. And while you're there, try counting the number of piracy related posts and comments (if you can even find any).
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Regardless of whether or not they should be tarred with the same brush, they are all breaking someone's terms of service
But that's just it, stealing is objectively bad. Breaking terms of service is not inherently bad. They are literally term-of-service, breaking them isn't a violation of law, and for good reason.
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every game publisher has a right to implement measures that at the very least raises publicity around the issue of jailbreaking and piracy in order that people who do jailbreak and don't pirate take a stronger stance against piracy.
Of course they have that right, I've never said they didn't. However, I have said it was a very foolish thing to do, it does nothing to prevent either jailbreaking or piracy and actually encourages people who would otherwise buy the game, to pirate it to prevent putting up with their restriction.
As far as people who do jailbreak and don't pirate, again, check out the largest community on the net in regards to jailbreaking. I dare you to post something positive about piracy. You will be pounced upon.
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If they lose business as a result, that's their choice to make. Given that people who don't jailbreak outnumber those who do by about 10:1 or more, I don't think they will suffer for their decision.
Yes, again, it's their right to make stupid decisions. But according to your made up statistic, that means they prevented 10% of their customers from playing the non-pirated version of their game and if you look at the app store reviews ended up with a lot of single-star negative reviews.
Look, we're both strongly anti-piracy. And I'm pro-jailbreak, you're anti-jailbreak, but regardless of either of those two things, you have to admit, their actions, despite having every right to do so, were foolish in terms of the results they were looking for.
Really, what they should've done was encrypt their .plist files, and continued to release frequent updates while still maintaining their more than reasonable price for the game.
I say this as a developer myself... The best course of action is not to piss off any segment of your customers. Look for alternative revenue options, and provide the best value possible. In the end, there will always be pirates, but don't cut off your nose to spite your face.
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You do have to jailbreak to download apps from that store.
Sigh... no you don't.
Just because they have squinty eyes doesn't mean that they don't have sight.
What do you guys call those, homynoms. I'll be careful in the future, I'm usually better at catching things like that. My English is improving though.
You suggest that the numbers don't indicate jailbreakers are pirates by saying maybe they're not all bad and buying eventually. Developers have not found that to be the case. You can justify any form of theft with hypotheticals e.g 'that guy stole a car. Well, maybe he'll use the money he makes from it to start a business and eventually pay society back'. The act of downloading a file via these sites is theft and a significant portion of people who jailbreak are doing it. If that wasn't the case, Appcake, ipastore etc wouldn't be on Cydia and if jailbreakers were so against it, those apps would be banned from Cydia.
If jailbreakers are against piracy, why don't they ban piracy apps and sources from Cydia?
If they choose to pirate rather than restore an Apple firmware then that just shows that jailbreakers tend more towards piracy than not.
Ok but if you go to a piracy community you won't be. Look at the Appcake forum, it says 159,000 members - 4.5x more than Reddit and that's just one community.
That's assuming the 10% would be paying and they won't be. It doesn't matter if a few jailbreakers are leaving negative reviews. The system requirements at the side say the game is compatible with iOS 5 or later. People with jailbroken phones aren't running iOS 5 or later, they're running a hacked firmware so their system doesn't meet the system requirements and have no right to complain.
I'm not against people jailbreaking their devices, I'm against people thinking they have a right to complain about consequences of the choices they make and think that other people should accommodate those choices.
All the developers have done here is state openly that they don't support jailbroken iOS. If they are implying that jailbreakers are pirates (which they didn't say explicitly), then it encourages the jailbreak community to either stand up against piracy or openly support piracy. If they stand up against it then that has a positive effect. If they turn round and support it, that just proves they were right to try and prevent the game running properly on jailbroken devices.
There's no negative effect for the developers because nobody cares that jailbreakers are upset at paying for a game that doesn't work properly. That's a consequence of a choice they made. If I hacked an XBox to play unofficial copies of games and a new game didn't work on it, I have absolutely no right to complain about it.