We have to go back to 2008 to understand the beginnings of this affair. While the iPhone has been out for a little over a year, Apple is launching its “App Store” download platform which will become the application we know. But a few months before this launch, Jay Freeman launched Cydia, an application download platform designed for iPhones. Obviously, this project did not please Apple greatly and the application was quickly excluded from the App Store (Apple's), making its download almost impossible.
Since then Cydia had become the unofficial Apple App Store par excellence. It is on the platform that most jailbroken applications were found. But the platform was also the benchmark for Apple's critics. And this Thursday, Cydia launched legal action against Apple, for “use of anti-competitive methods” which would have led to Cydia’s loss. The lawyers of the pirate platform regretted the use of Apple's monopoly in the distribution of applications on iPhone, and more widely on iOS and iPadOS, Mac OS having a particular role, the App Store dedicated to Macs is much less provided and it is much simpler to download applications via means other than Apple's in-house download platform.
According to Cydia, it is abnormal that Apple does not allow the competition to offer an alternative solution to the App Store, which would be beneficial for users, but also for developers who could, for example, deploy their application on less provided platforms and thus have better visibility.
“Apple does not have a monopoly”
According to the spokesperson for the Apple brand, Fred Sainz was talking about a monopoly with regard to Apple and the App Store does not make sense, given that the Cupertino company is in competition with Android and the Play Store. Apple defends itself by explaining that the brand is responsible for the applications downloaded to its phones and that it is for this reason that external downloads are not authorized, in order to protect Apple phone users.
Today, the App Store is the only platform for downloading applications for iOS and iPadOS. And this service brings a lot to Apple. The average estimate is $15 billion per year for the App Store, notably thanks to the 30% commission, which also causes a lot of noise and dissatisfaction.
However, the App Store has not always been a stronghold for Apple. When the first iPhones were launched, it was estimated that one in two phones was jailbroken, and had access to features not wanted by Apple. But as the generations of phones have come and gone, Apple has reduced the possibilities of jailbreaking, and introduced features exclusive to Cydia within the App Store and the iPhone, the best known of which is certainly the control center which comes from jailbreaks before appearing on the iPhone.
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By : Keleops AG
