Apple is the exclusive gatekeeper to its iPhone App Store, able to reject apps at will — as it did July 28 with Google Voice.
Some would-be iPhone developers, rejected by Apple, are turning to an unauthorized app store called Cydia.
But some developers aren’t taking the rejection lying down: They’re turning instead to an unauthorized app store called Cydia, where forbidden wares continue to exist — and even earn developers some money.
That store is operated by Jay Freeman, more fondly known in the iPhone “Jailbreak” community as Saurik. Only five months old, his app store Cydia specializes in selling apps that Apple would reject or ban (or already has).
To use Cydia or the apps available through it, customers need to jailbreak their phones — hack them to work around Apple-imposed restrictions — a process that Apple claims is illegal.
Indeed, you can even get a Google Voice app, GV Mobile, through Cydia. After Apple pulled the app from its App Store, developer Sean Kovacs (who is not affiliated with Google) made it available for free through Cydia.
It’s difficult to get accurate data on how many customers have jailbroken their iPhones. But based on the number of unique device identifiers tracked on his server, Freeman claims that about 4 million, or 10 percent of the 40 million iPhone and iPod Touch owners to date, have installed Cydia.
On a recent day, he said 470,000 people were connecting to the Cydia store, up from 350,000 per day just a few months ago. Among many free apps, there are also 15 paid apps in Cydia, and the store has earned $220,000 in overall sales in just five months.
“People are so annoyed by Apple and their s—, and if you give them opportunity to go around it, then they’ll even pay for it,” said Kim Streich, a developer whose app 3G Unrestrictor earned $19,000 in sales in just two weeks through Cydia.