As you may know, the new Jailbreak for post 4.0 iDevices is going to be released in soon. In past also, The iPhone-Dev team has released Jailbreaks for Apple Devices. These Jailbreaks are meant to let the device users have freedom. Apple rejects so many apps submitted to App Store for many reason and sometimes these developers submits them to Cydia, the largest third-party store for Apple device apps. These apps are really useful for iDevice users. One can have many useful functionality which Apple doesn't provide. All this is possible because of jailbreak.
But, jailbreaks have another use too, installing cracked apps. People use jailbreak to install cracked Apple apps. As Jailbreaks makes it possible to install cracked apps, people are blaming jailbreak community for this, and obviously, the jailbreak developers don't like it. Jailbreak developers like iPhone-Dev Team has always rebuked this kind of use of their Jailbreaks. But according to them, they can't stop this as it would strike on users' freedom. When asked how users can support iPhone-Dev Team in an interview recently , MuscleNerd, member of iPhone-Dev Team recently said they can support them by continuing to not promote piracy.
On the other hand, the crackers who patches the apps says that they do this for fun only. Dissident, owner of a large website for cracked apps (I won't mention it here) says -
The iPhone “cracked app scene” started from the idea of people being able to trial apps before sinking their money into them; an especially useful and welcome exercise considering that such a large number of apps on Apple’s App Store are pointless, underdeveloped, overpriced, and with deceptive descriptions to boot. In the two years that have passed, our community has enjoyed an explosion of activity resulting from the interest of many to trial iPhone apps. Many of our users appreciate the opportunity to be able to make a confident and informed decision when handing over their money for apps.
According to him, the app piracy does not hurt Jailbreaking's image. They do this to allow people to take trial of the app before they actually but them.
You can't say how actually its true. Although there are people who uses cracked apps and buy them if they 'like' it, there are many who doesn't. They uses cracked apps because they don't want to spend money on them. While most of the apps does not cost much, its shocking to see people using cracked ones. Of course there are many apps which costs as high as $50 to $90. These apps are usually the navigation apps which are developed with great human efforts. There are games from biggies like EA Mobile and Gameloft. These games are developed with high quality graphics and superior game-play. They also costs high but not that high that you can't afford them.
Actually, there are many reason people turning to use pirated apps. There are people who cant afford buying them, there are people who does not have any payment methods available in their country. Some people 'actually' tries pirated apps and 'buys' them if they like it. While some are the lazy bastard ones who just don't want to spend a penny from their own pockets and want everything free they could get.
Blaming Jailbreak developers for app piracy is totally lame. Whoever says they are the reason behind app piracy are deaf and blind. They don't see or hear what the Jailbreak developers say about piracy. There were possibilities of 'blocking' pirated apps from being installed in the upcoming Jailbreak, but they won't do it as it would get people in another 'Jail' of restrictions. Piracy is a branch of developing and is not new. People have been using cracked application on their computers since long. Its the other side of a coin which will walk along with developing of applications. Jailbreak developers have given so much to users just like Apple has. You can't blame if 'a few' people uses it for wrong reasons. Internet is the biggest source of cracked application being spread. You are not going to shut down the whole internet, are you?
No cracker have ever said that don't buy an application. They have always said "If you like an application, buy it and support developers." They don't come and ask people to use their 'cracked' applications instead of buying them. They have been doing this 'Just for Fun' as they say. Its the people who goes and 'search' for cracked applications. Then they blame the crackers for piracy.
It's up to the people whether to use cracked apps or not. But when it comes to blaming Jailbreak developers, its LAME. I would hope the Jailbreak developers to come out (from the well of Twitter) and show the world about how they feel about piracy. Until then, there are we, the people who knows and understand what actually the thing is like and would spread the word.
