Any iPhone user will know that Apple is severely limiting the iPhone feature wise. First there was Installer for jailbroken iPhones that allowed you to unlock the full potential of your iDevice. Now on OS 2.0, there is another player in the 3rd party app store market: Cydia. While Installer and Cydia are both added at the time of jailbreaking, Cydia seems to have taken the lead in popularity. Regardless, both stores offer great choices that sadly will never see the light of day inside Apple’s App Store. Cydia is about to get another feature that will bring it to the level of Apple’s very own App Store bringing with it the potential for legal problems…
One addition to Cydia that has solidified it as a legitimate 3rd party app store is the addition of paid apps. However, paying for those apps can be tedious as payment is usually through paypal but product key options have shown up as well. One faithful iPhone developer and Cydia head honcho, Jay Freeman has proposed the idea of a unified payment system for Cydia so that it mirrors Apple’s App Store and makes paying for apps just as easy. Don’t expect Apple to just lay down with this though. It was only a couple weeks ago that they made the ridiculous claim that jailbreaking was illegal. (Because installing applications of your choice on YOUR device thereby upsetting the Apple monopoly is somehow against the law). Expect Apple to unleash a firestorm of a lawsuit in the coming weeks. I for one hope Jay succeeds and if taken to court by Apple…wins. It would be a great victory for the jailbreaking scene and for iPhone users everywhere. Apple did design a great device, though their marketing and how they regulate it are completely stupid. If/when the better payment system comes to Cydia, will you jailbreak solely for that reason?
Source: Gizmodo, Cult of Mac, WSJ
