It makes me sad that these get used for piracy. They could be extremely useful by allowing widespread installation of apps that Apple won't accept in their store, but instead we get another lame piracy service that people will point to as evidence that Apple's walled garden approach is a good thing.
I suppose the positive in this is that it doesn't require a jailbreak, and so doesn't tarnish the jailbreak name which has already unfairly been painted with the Installous / piracy brush.
Jailbreaking already allows widespread installation of apps Apple won't let in their store. Its utility is far more than piracy.
I feel the exact same way. I jailbreak to develop on my own device and use Cydia for things they'd never let through. I've never used Installous or anything like it.
But piracy is a feature. It's good thing. Paying for stuff sucks. From a user's point of view, if Apple's walled garden approach prevents piracy, then that's just another reason their walled garden approach is bad.
Edit: I'm not even playing devil's advocate here, this is just honestly what I think, and I think what most people honestly think. Stuff is better when you don't have to pay for it.
Stuff sucks when you don't have to pay for it. That's why Android apps have never really held a candle to their iOS counterparts; piracy has been easier on Android. As an Android user, I'm just hoping this causes developers to not automatically develop for iOS first and then Android as an afterthought, if at all.
From a user's point of view, if walled gardens help support app devs making more apps, and those apps are worth more than the $1.99 or however much they cost, this is a net gain.
No. I have developed (free) software in the past, and I've contributed to larger projects as well, but I don't have as much time for programming anymore. I "make" a living through a combination of squatting, dumpster diving and occasionally theft (only from bad people though).
Great, lets all make our apps free so you don't have to pay for anything. Wait, you mean I can't just take the stuff I need to eat for free from a supermarket? That's crap.
Ridiculous example for a ridiculous statement. Piracy is not a feature. If piracy was a feature it'd be ridiculously easy to pirate games on all consoles, but it's not.
You can take stuff and eat it for free from a supermarket. It's called shoplifting and people do it all the time. Food should be free, by the way; you seem to think that it shouldn't be and that it's right that people are forced to work for some capitalist because if they don't they can't get money for food.
Your second statement doesn't make any sense. As a user, I consider "ease of getting stuff for free" a feature of a platform. All other things being equal, it's better to get something for free than to pay for it. The difficulty of pirating stuff for consoles is an anti-feature. Your argument is that if X is a feature then consoles would necessarily have it; consoles don't have it; therefore X is not a feature. There is no reason to assume that consoles would necessarily have every possible feature.
I've enjoyed reading your input to this thread. It's interesting that you're taking this stance, as clearly, I wouldn't expect it on this site. Most of these guys are developers; and more than likely don't have days of war nights of love on their bedstand.
Your opinion is valid. Of course getting things for free is great. But, you are not only speaking to most of the hand that feeds you here, but are also forgetting that a majority of the world operates on a cost-benefit... a majority of people are mostly motivated by money to spend their time doing things. And this is what the dude earlier was trying to say... developers (who are motivated by money) will not develop for a device they can't make money off of. Developing is their dumpster diving, just without the dumpster. It's simply an alternate (and arguably easier [un/fortunately]) way of being.
I have a day job and contribute to open source projects in ways that I can. I hope all developers do this, like I hope lawyers do as much pro bono work as they can; but I realize neither is the case.
