Cydia's App Store For Jailbroken iPhones Shuts Down Purchases

Cydia, the App Store for jailbroken devices, is shutting down purchases as its creator moves to shut down the store entirely in the near future. "Cydia's creator Saurik made the announcement on Reddit after a bug was discovered in the platform that may have put user data at risk," iPhonehacks reports. "This bug prompted Saurik to clarify the issue and reveal that he has been planning on shutting down Cydia for quite a while now." From the report: The founder clarifies that the bug only puts a limited number of users at risk who are logged into Cydia and browse a repository with untrusted content -- a scenario which Saurik has strongly advised against right from day one. Plus, he also says that this is not a data leak and he has not lost access to PayPal authorization tokens. Coming to the harsh reality, Saurik says that he has been looking to shut down Cydia Store before the end of this year. The reports of a data leak have acted as a catalyst to bring the timetable further up. There are multiple reasons as to why he is looking to shut down the service including the fact that he has to pay for the hefty hosting bills from his own pocket.

Saurik has already gone ahead and shut down the ability to buy jailbreak tweaks in Cydia. This means that one can no longer use the Cydia Store to buy jailbreak tweaks on a jailbroken iPhone. On the bright side, Saurik does intend to allow users to download jailbreak tweaks that they have already paid for. Saurik will also make a more formal announcement about the shutting down of Cydia sometime soon. Do note that this change relates only to Cydia Store and not Cydia the installer which is used to install tweaks on a jailbroken device. The latter will continue to work as usual.

Did it even work after 2013?

[kriston]

Did it even work after 2013? I jailbroke a few iPod Touch devices and the Cydia "App Store" never really worked. I guess it worked at some point in iPhones, but not in iPod Touches.

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[nawcom]

Yes, it did work after 2013. No issues that I experienced. If Cydia didn't work correctly then the jailbreak app which installs Cydia with it was faulty somehow. I remember a couple times where it didn't initially work and redoing the jailbreak would fix it. I've lost interest in it probably since iOS 11 but I actively jailbroke before then.

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[Registered Coward v2]

Yes, it did work after 2013. No issues that I experienced. If Cydia didn't work correctly then the jailbreak app which installs Cydia with it was faulty somehow. I remember a couple times where it didn't initially work and redoing the jailbreak would fix it. I've lost interest in it probably since iOS 11 but I actively jailbroke before then.

Same here. Jailbreaking allowed me to add functionality, such as notifications on the lock screen, that iOS lacked. As iOS matured, there was no longer a compelling reason to jailbreak and the hassles of keeping a phone jailbroken as iOS was updated were no longer worth it. Enthusiasm has waned for jailbreaking, as referenced in TFA and by the noticeable absence of articles in Apple centric websites speculating when the lasted iOS jailbreak would be available and announcing it when it happened. As a result,

Let 'em crash

[Stormwatch]

iPhone users are a weird bunch. They knowingly choose the more restrictive platform, then try to find workarounds, rather than choose the platform that is more open in the first place. To quote one of the greatest movies ever: "they bought their tickets, they knew what they were getting into. I say, let 'em crash."

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[Anonymous Coward]

iPhone users are a weird bunch. They knowingly choose the more restrictive platform, then try to find workarounds, rather than choose the platform that is more open in the first place.

So 2008, when Cydia was created. iPhone ran a full unix userland and toolset.

Your options were Microsoft Windows phone, which ran Microsoft software for a few minutes before locking up and needing rebooted.

Then there was blackberry, which was less than steller without a multi tens of thousands of dollars per year exchange addon.

Android didn't exist.

Let me guess, you are a Microsoft fanboi, claiming they are open?
Or you just don't believe anyone should use phones by running Android that doesn't exist and wo

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[Stormwatch]

Yes, I understand that was justifiable back then. But I'm saying, if you buy an iPhone TODAY, you can't really complain much. Its restrictiveness is well-known, so you buy one accepting that as part of the package. If you want openness, you just go and get an Android -- which has long ceased to be an inferior option.

(Also, you fail to mention Symbian. It never made a dent in 'Murica, but was king in Europe until early 2011.)

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[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, I understand that was justifiable back then. But I'm saying, if you buy an iPhone TODAY, you can't really complain much. Its restrictiveness is well-known, so you buy one accepting that as part of the package. If you want openness, you just go and get an Android -- which has long ceased to be an inferior option.

So let me get this straight.

When Cydia started, when the iPhone was one of the most powerful systems after jailbreaking, because we did so makes us "a weird bunch"?

Now today, when that isn't the case anymore, and the entire jailbreaking scene has moved on to better things, to the point even Cydia and it's infrastructure is shutting down, that makes us "a weird bunch"?

Absolutely no one is complaining about how restrictive iPhone is today. In fact all of the powerusers aren't buying iPhones today. They aren

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[Powercntrl]

If you want openness, you just go and get an Android -- which has long ceased to be an inferior option.

Openness on Android just means more businesses are able to vie for your money and/or personal information. Most smartphone manufacturers lock down the bootloader to prevent you from modifying the OS, and some (Samsung's phones sold in the USA comes to mind) don't even allow you to unlock it.

Even if you do unlock your bootloader and root your phone, Google's SafetyNet API necessitates all sort of nasty hacks to retain any semblance of usability, since these days many apps refuse to run in an insecure enviro

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[YaseenHussain]

I am using Jazz Whatsapp Package [jazzinternetpackages.com] On iPhone

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[sad_]

I'm not aware on the whole jailbreaking thing works on iphone, but from the summary it appears you even have to pay for it?
weird bunch doesn't even begin to describe the iphone users.

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[Highdude702]

Have been jailbreaking iphones for years now(seriously worthless otherwise) and have never paid for a single app/program through cydia or otherwise.

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[jellomizer]

Well for some reason people wants the best of both worlds. The closed nature of Apple, gives you a safe environment to work in, and the Apple App Store Apps are on average better quality then what Google has to offer, plus you have a good selection. Now there are a lot of apps the will not be on the Apple Store often many of them are actually very powerful and useful tools, but seems to step against Apples Rules.
I don't see it weird that people want a superior device for most of their usage, with the abili

Are you really that naive?

[Brannon]

...as to believe that the Cydia crowd in any way represents a cross-section of iPhone users? Generous estimates put the number at something like 0.3%.

So 99.7% of iPhone users have no interest in jailbreaking their phone--they just want something that works. My microwave is also a pretty restricted platform--I'm okay with that.

Tautology 101

[stealth_finger]

Saurik has already gone ahead and shut down the ability to buy jailbreak tweaks in Cydia. This means that one can no longer use the Cydia Store to buy jailbreak tweaks on a jailbroken iPhone.

So removing something from sale means you can't buy it? Glad we cleared that up.

thanks to the jailbreak

[ennis99]

myself I never paid for an application thanks to the jailbreak ____________________________________________________ https://www.icloudcentral.com/ [icloudcentral.com] https://tweakbox.mobi/ [tweakbox.mobi] https://getappvalley.com/ [getappvalley.com]