Jailbreaking takes a hit as Cydia "app store" shutters

The end may be nigh for iOS jailbreaking as the Cydia Store officially shut down this week, depriving a once thriving community of an important app distribution platform.

Creator Jay Saurik made the announcement in a Reddit thread on Thursday, confirming the demise of the jailbreaking community's main app store.

At its peak, Cydia was able to support a small team devoted to its upkeep, but that time has long passed. Recently, Cydia has made next to nothing for Saurik, instead costing him thousands of dollars a month, not to mention his mental well-being.

"The reality is that I wanted to just shut down the Cydia Store entirely before the end of the year, and was considering moving the timetable up," Saurik said on Reddit.

Saurik was already planning on shutting down Cydia, but a recent security flaw was discovered, potentially putting logged in users at risk. This caused prominent jailbreak developers such as Nullpixel and Andy Wiik to issue statements urging users to remove their PayPal info from their accounts.

"I think he made a good decision for his own health" Andy Wiik said to AppleInsider, adding he thinks the community will continue to live on.

While it is no longer possible to make purchases through Cydia, the repo itself will still be around, allowing users to download previous purchases or make purchases through third-parties.

Additional details will be forthcoming from Saurik with more details on what the future holds for Cydia as well as its rise and fall.

35 Comments

noraa1138 8 Years · 32 comments

About 6 years ago

Sad, but hardly surprising. The latest iOS to be jailbroken was 11.4 beta 3 - and that actually only happened recently. The likely hood of iOS 12 being jailbroken at this point is fairly slim, and it certainly isn't going to happen any time soon. For better or worse, jailbreaking isn't nearly as necessary as it was in iOS' early days. Apple has added a number of features that were popularized by various jailbreak tweaks, and for the vast majority of users it simply isn't worth the hassle and security implications that come with jailbreaking.

payeco 17 Years · 581 comments

noraa1138 said:

Sad, but hardly surprising. The latest iOS to be jailbroken was 11.4 beta 3 - and that actually only happened recently. The likely hood of iOS 12 being jailbroken at this point is fairly slim, and it certainly isn't going to happen any time soon. For better or worse, jailbreaking isn't nearly as necessary as it was in iOS' early days. Apple has added a number of features that were popularized by various jailbreak tweaks, and for the vast majority of users it simply isn't worth the hassle and security implications that come with jailbreaking.

I haven’t jailbroken my iPhone since iPhoneOS 1 but as you mentioned, Apple pulled some features popularized from the jailbreak universe. Probably most notably the first major overhaul of the notification system which serves as the foundation of notifications to this day. I do worry that maybe without the jailbreak community it will negatively impact the future of iOS by cutting off a a well of ideas.

caladanian 10 Years · 380 comments

payeco said:

noraa1138 said:

Sad, but hardly surprising. The latest iOS to be jailbroken was 11.4 beta 3 - and that actually only happened recently. The likely hood of iOS 12 being jailbroken at this point is fairly slim, and it certainly isn't going to happen any time soon. For better or worse, jailbreaking isn't nearly as necessary as it was in iOS' early days. Apple has added a number of features that were popularized by various jailbreak tweaks, and for the vast majority of users it simply isn't worth the hassle and security implications that come with jailbreaking.

I haven’t jailbroken my iPhone since iPhoneOS 1 but as you mentioned, Apple pulled some features popularized from the jailbreak universe. Probably most notably the first major overhaul of the notification system which serves as the foundation of notifications to this day. I do worry that maybe without the jailbreak community it will negatively impact the future of iOS by cutting off a a well of ideas.

I do like what Apple is introducing with „shortcuts“ => if they go further this way they open up for customisations, tweeks and smart combinations without compromising security. :)