iPhone App Piracy is nothing to Lose Sleep Over
Piracy has always been an impending doom looming above any new software. With the popularity of the iPhone, users are now looking at Apple and their efforts to keep the piracy issue to a minimum. With figures reaching up to 90% casually thrown in user conversations, the buzz makes the situation look worse than it actually is.
The reality is that piracy is not Apple’s biggest concern right now. It exists, but the effect in general is not that serious. It is only less than 10% serious for that matter since that is the estimated number of iPhones that are jailbroken.
Jailbreaking is the method of unlocking or modifying the OEM iPhone OS. The way iPhone piracy works is through the use of two apps on jailbroken phones: one that allows the cracking of purchased apps and one that allows the installation of cracked apps. The cracked apps can then be made available on the internet through download link sites. Fortunately for law-abiding users, Appulo.us, the most popular of these download sites was already shut down last month.
Apple is not dwelling on the loss of sales due to dedicated pirates though. This is due to the well-known fact that app pirates have never intended to be paid users anyway. Also, iPhones that are jailbroken with the sole purpose of using illegal apps are not as popular now as they used to be. The number of people willing to forego regular updates and those willing to risk rendering their precious devices totally useless is dwindling. The newest iPhone 3Gs with its amped up security also makes jailbreaking more difficult and In-app purchases are changing the way developers are marketing their apps.
Apple seems to be doing a good job keeping pirates at bay. If they can be consistent with the apps they veto out of the official store, they might just be able to keep their users happy enough to prefer them over independent app download sites.
Read more about iPhone app piracy in Gizmodo.
