Apple gets Cydia app store lawsuit dismissed, for now
A US District Judge has dismissed Cydia's lawsuit claiming that Apple's App Store unfairly forced it out of business, but will allow Cydia to amend its complaint.
Originally filed in December 2020, the lawsuit by Jay Freeman, creator of Cydia, says that Apple used its monopoly position against the alternative jailbreaking store. Cydia claimed that it was forced to shut down because of Apple's allegedly unlawful control of app distribution on iOS.
Now U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers has granted Apple's motion to dismiss the case. However, she has granted Freeman leave to amend his suit.
Should Freeman choose to proceed, he has until January 19, 2022, to file the amended suit. Then Apple will have until February 2, 2022, to respond.
Cydia launched as a jailbreaking tool, and a source of alternative apps and features for the iPhone, before Apple started its own App Store. It required users to first circumvent Apple's iOS security, but according to The Washington Post, some 4.5 million users were doing so at the peak of Cydia's popularity.
Apple subsequently patched at least the majority of ways its iOS could be jailbroken, making Cydia impractical to the average user. Freeman's suit also alleged that Apple tried to convince users that jailbreaking was dangerous, which he denies.
Freeman had sought trial by jury, plus damages and fees. The amount of damages would mean estimating all of the potential earnings lost since 2012, when Cydia says it was forced out of business. At its peak, Cydia earned $10 million in 2011 to 2012, by charging developers a fee for being on its store.
The dismissal of the suit was first reported by MacRumors.
Read on AppleInsider
Originally filed in December 2020, the lawsuit by Jay Freeman, creator of Cydia, says that Apple used its monopoly position against the alternative jailbreaking store. Cydia claimed that it was forced to shut down because of Apple's allegedly unlawful control of app distribution on iOS.
Now U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers has granted Apple's motion to dismiss the case. However, she has granted Freeman leave to amend his suit.
Should Freeman choose to proceed, he has until January 19, 2022, to file the amended suit. Then Apple will have until February 2, 2022, to respond.
Cydia launched as a jailbreaking tool, and a source of alternative apps and features for the iPhone, before Apple started its own App Store. It required users to first circumvent Apple's iOS security, but according to The Washington Post, some 4.5 million users were doing so at the peak of Cydia's popularity.
Apple subsequently patched at least the majority of ways its iOS could be jailbroken, making Cydia impractical to the average user. Freeman's suit also alleged that Apple tried to convince users that jailbreaking was dangerous, which he denies.
Freeman had sought trial by jury, plus damages and fees. The amount of damages would mean estimating all of the potential earnings lost since 2012, when Cydia says it was forced out of business. At its peak, Cydia earned $10 million in 2011 to 2012, by charging developers a fee for being on its store.
The dismissal of the suit was first reported by MacRumors.
Read on AppleInsider
Comments
nevertheless, some people risked it. The main reason why it died was not because Apple made it more difficult, though that was certainly a reason, but because Apple had added most of the features people were jailbreaking for. There was little reason for it at that point.
it’s interesting that with all the hoopla over Android/s “openness”, it’s still recommended to only download apps from the Google Play Store, and not sideload, for reasons of safety.
Most times Apple have implemented a feature later it was already being set up in the releases prior.
Interesting if Cydia made a significant profit lulling people into thinking Jailbreaking was safe and easy while basically creating a means to exploit the users with scams and stealing of information. I kind of wonder if there is a means for people abused by those scams to seek recourse?
This isn't 2007. Security on iPhones is much more solid than back then. Maybe it's time for Apple to allow outside stores.
I know people here will have a fit. But couldn't Apple just say, yes you CAN install from an outside store, but doing so voids your warranty permanently and absolutely. You have an app on there and your system gets fried, too F-ing bad we won't touch it. You are SOL. Don't let the door hit you in the backside. Most people would stick with the App Store, I know I get nearly everything I need from the MacAppStore. That would be especially true when the horror stories started circulating. And tbh most people that got apps from outside would be fine. But from the small percentage who get in trouble. Well you threw the dice and took your chances. Sucks to be you.
In many ways I see it as like people who mod their cars. You WANT to put a turbo and a nitrus injection system on it fine, just don't come crying to us when you blow a head gasket.
so,what was your point?
apple had 512 apps available the first day, which was considered to be quite a feat at the time, considering it was done all in secret. The number grew swiftly, and very shortly they had thousands. It didn’t take long before the had tens of thousands. At the time Microsoft had about 20,000, which was considered to be a lot. But before too long, Apple surpassed that. The number of apps was never the problem. It was the quest of some people for illegal services and features that disabled some of Apple’s features, or added those that Apple considered to be either unsafe, or problematic.
i don’t agree that it Sherlocked Cydia. The concept of that is that it was done deliberately. It really wasn’t. It was a result of Apple’s continuing quest to make their system secure. The fact that jailbreaking relied, not on OS features, but bugs, means that Apple needed to close them up. And so they did. Cydia was never more than a minor irritant to Apple.
I remember when Apple announced the 30% fee and what they were doing for it. Developers were joyful, because 30% was so much lower than they were paying everywhere else. They forget that. EPIC, who basically started all of this, is known as one of the greediest companies out there. They also charge 30% in their own store, and are stricter than Apple.
So, I think an easy way for Apple to escape this growing App Store problem would be to simply offer a special section for web apps in the store. These web apps would be runnung in WebKit, and possible to install and execute on the iOS desktop like today.
In this way, anybody could offer their apps on the App Store without Apple’s control or commission, and they still would work inside Apple’s ecosystem — albeit limited to WebKit functionality. They would be coded in the way “originally intended” for the iPhone.
If you want to code your app in an even fancier way, with deeper “native” integration to Apple’s iOS, then you would be demanded to undergo quality- and security verifications. You would naturally also be charged for that process, as well as access fees to the API:s Apple has developed — for example in proportion to the number of API calls made by each user running that app.
I think it would be quite hard for developers, and others, to drive a court case against that.