If you own a jailbroken iPhone, you'll need to find somewhere else to download and install apps.
Cydia will no longer distribute apps, founder Jay 'Saurik' Freeman confirmed. The digital store, which launched more than a decade ago, doesn't generate enough revenue to remain viable. In a post on Reddit last week, Freeman revealed how Cydia requires a lot of money to operate and falls short of profitability. Along with that, he's also done feeling stressed over criticism.
The digital store wasn't meant to unleash piracy, but Cydia couldn't stop itself from going on that route. Otherwise, it served as a tool for developers to offer system-level tweaks to iOS. Just as rooting an Android device has become quite unpopular, jailbreaking an iPhone isn't too common these days.
Here's some of what Freeman had to say:
"This service loses me money and is not something I have any passion to maintain: it was a critical component of a healthy ecosystem, and for a while it helped fund a small staff of people to maintain the ecosystem, but it came at great cost to my sanity and led lots of people to irrationally hate me due to what amounted to a purposeful misunderstanding of how profit vs. revenue works."
Users shouldn't be concerned about their existing accounts. Freeman recommends removing PayPal accounts that are linked, but there isn't an imminent threat that'll compromise any personal information.
It's the end of an era. Apple tried stopping its customers from jailbreaking their iPhone units, but a workaround always appeared. Still, there must be a good number of people out there who are deeply saddened to see this news. Cydia was a staple of the jailbreaking experience.
Within the next few days, expect Freeman to publish a lengthy blog post explaining what Cydia's status looks like.
