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Comment by sinak | Hacker News Reader

We did most of the development and testing, but didn't get it 100% production ready after we decided we wouldn't release the app.

Since the main functionality of the app is the push notification service, having users compile their own apps wouldn't really be very helpful. Users need to subscribe to our push notification channel via APNS, and they can't do that if they're compiling themselves.

We could have ignored that and built our own, less-than-realtime push service, but even still, having users compile their own apps means that our users have to pay the $99 and sign the developer agreements instead of us, and I don't think that's a very reasonable request.

I think the best solution is for us to release on the Cydia marketplace, and I think it's pretty likely we'll do that.

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Cydia requires jail breaking and that's a decidedly user-hostile thing to suggest, especially when it comes from a respected name like the EFF. Jailbreaking disables crucial security measures on iOS, and many things people like to install after jailbreaking destabilize the OS (granted, you can jailbreak without installing those hacks). It's not a coincidence that every time there has been news of malware affecting iOS, it only affected jail broken devices.

All in all, I would vastly prefer that the EFF not encourage users to jailbreak.

The EFF fought for our right to jailbreak: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/02/apple-says-jailbreakin...

What are you getting worked up over? A digital rights organization expressing their digital rights? Sometimes freedom comes with greater responsibility and a slight inconvenience. I'd rather have that responsibility and inconvenience than just not care.

The right to jailbreak, and the recommendation to jailbreak, are two completely different things.

I absolutely support the right to jailbreak your device. But I would never agree to actually jailbreak my own device, and I strongly encourage others to avoid it as well.

The issue here isn't that the EFF is expressing their rights. It's the fact that if the EFF releases an iOS app exclusively on Cydia then they're endorsing jailbreaking and encouraging people who don't know any better that they should do this. I would imagine there would be some pretty negative things said about the EFF if they released a Windows application that required users to disable all anti-virus software. That's basically what endorsing jailbreaking is, for iOS.

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