iPhone users join hands with hackers. What does this mean to us iPhone developers?

Recently it was in the news that ‘Chronic Dev hacker team’ created an app for intercepting error messages sent from iPhone and send it to their team so that they can dig into them to find some bug. This bug can be utilized to create an efficient Jail break for the iPhone. It is reported that the users response had been overwhelming that "In the first couple of days after CDevreporter  is released  they received about twelve million crash reports”. Does this mean a good number of iPhone users are willing to have a Jail break iPhone?

Let us try to dig deeper into this.

The iPhone is the undisputed leader in Smartphone sector which was able to capture most of the market and was able to oust Nokia, the market leader in mobile phone and gave RIM a run for its money. The UI and architecture of iPhone is too good that till now no other manufacturer was able to make a comparable competitor. True, the iPhone is costly, but it is still worth the money. You can buy apps from the App and Games from the App store and use in your phone. But the apps in the App store are scrutinized by Apple so there are quite a lot of applications that fail to get to the App store. If you have a non-jailbreak iPhone you are barred from using these applications. Another major concern is that you usually do not have a trial version/demo version of an app before buying it. As a windows user we are used to different versions of an app like Demo, Shareware so that we can use it and only if we are interested, we can buy it.

So, in the case of App store, you usually do not get this freedom and end up spending your hard earned money for unwanted apps. But once you install an app in your phone, you can use it for ever. Naturally users tend to have a Jailbreak that does not void their warranty so that they can try the apps.

But what does this mean to developers? The scariest part is that in a jail broken iPhone you can run any app that is not even approved by Apple. A story was floating in the net some time before that the company ended up with managing data for hundred times of illegal users than legitimate users.  Does that ring a bell? You will end up with apps get pirated and in the wild without you getting a penny from it. All the hard work you spent is in vain. If you are making standalone apps, then it is of great concern. One method to avoid this menace is to have you users verify themselves with your servers each time they login and that involve managing a backend user verification overhead.

If the users are able to easily pirate your apps and that you are not paid for it, will you still hang out with iPhone development? Definitely no. This will eventually affect the whole iPhone ecosystem which could lead to its total collapse.

Apple should come up with a method to totally prohibit Jail breaking of iPhone.