Apple Banning Hackers From the App Store

[mtbinva]

if you pay for an app, then why should the Apple care? If you pay for phone service, why is it (jaibreaking) illegal? I currently do not have my iPhone jail-broken, although I have had an old one I did. I believe if one buys an iPhone full blown price outright (hundereds of dollars) then it should be the right of the consumer to do with it what they want.

Steeling apps or services, however, is wrong no matter how you slice it.

Just my $0.02

 

[fleurya]

For the record, I totally agree that stealing apps is wrong and I don't condone it in any way. I was just pointing out that for these hackers, a ban from the App Store is substantially meaningless and will only push them from doing apparently legal things like modding the iPhone OS to outright illegal things like stealing the apps Apple won't let them buy.

 

[gomez1018]

I have to disagree with this action taken by Apple. They need to take some of their own advice and stop being lazy. If they don't want people to hack, then they need to fix their software to remove the vulnerability instead of trying to ban the hackers. If what these hackers are doing is so illegal, then why doesn't Apple go after them through legal channels? And if it's not truly illegal, then they need to just leave them alone.

In the end, it's a complete non-event, and if anything it's only going to hurt Apple more. These guys are smart enough to hack the phone's software then they are obviously smart enough to get any software they want, including Apple's own apps, and for free, without an account. I mean, I don't know squat about coding and hacking and I could break my phone and get any App Store app on my iPhone for free within a hour! Does Apple really think they accomplished anything with this move?

The reason that Apple will not go after these guys in a more strict manner is simple dollars. Apple knows that a large portion of iphone sales come from the jailbroken community. By fully prosecuting they rick losing a large sum of money and market share to competitors. So, they make it difficult instead. The "hacker/jailbreaker" community is not afraid of challenge. When in fact many embrace the challenge.

 

[blackmac11]

I think it's a good move because it isn't too extreme. They aren't telling everyone "You can't jailbreak you iPhone" they are just preventing the major hackers from stealing/distributing apps. Other hackers will still get to them, but it will impede their overall progress and take longer to make the apps freely available. This in turn could promote more users buying the apps rather than waiting for them to be free. Just a thought

 

[Chris H.]

I think this is great news (albeit somewhat old, judging on how late I am to posting a reply). One thing I like about the Android OS is that it has some functions on it like a computer- only a true computer geek like me would appreciate that. However, I also love the iPhone OS because it is simple to use, and Apple offers everything I want: email, nearly full HTML web browsing, Apps, notes, etc.

That's my two cents.