Just this week, a U.S. district judge dismissed an eyebrow-raising lawsuit that was filed against Apple at the end of last year by none other than Cydia creator Jay Freeman (A.K.A. Saurik), a name that many jailbreakers and iDownloadBlog readers alike will recognize as ‘The Father of Jailbreaking.’
Freeman dragged Apple into court last month on behalf of Cydia because of an antitrust complaint, which more specifically accused Apple of employing monopolistic software distribution tactics on its platforms to squander competition, such as Cydia itself.
The situation isn’t all doom and gloom, however, as MacRumors reports that the judge has offered Freeman a chance to amend the complaint by Wednesday, January 19th, which provides team Cydia an opportunity to adjust its strategy before trying again. Having said that, the ball is officially in Freeman’s court, and it will be interesting to see what happens next.
Cydia launched in early 2008 and pre-dates the iPhone’s native App Store by several months. It was originally comprised of two components, including 1) the standalone package manager app that jailbreak tools like checkra1n and unc0ver install during the jailbreaking process; and 2) the Cydia Store, which Freeman reluctantly shut down in 2018 due to PayPal-related security concerns.
Even to this day, Cydia lets users browse a resourceful catalog of third-party apps and software tweaks that can change the host device’s aesthetics or behavior. Unfortunately, the Cydia Store hasn’t re-opened, but a myriad of third-party alternatives quickly filled the vacuum that had been left behind by it.
Since Cydia is a jailbreak-based platform, it’s easy to see why Freeman holds standing in this litigation. After all, Apple does everything in its power to prevent jailbreaking, such as unsigning jailbreakable firmware so that users are compelled to restore to non-jailbreakable versions. Moreover, users can’t effortlessly downgrade to older, jailbreakable firmware on demand.
Cydia isn’t the first entity to take Apple to court over antitrust issues, and it probably won’t be the last. Just last year, Epic Games made headline after headline in a long legal fight against Apple that ultimately got them nowhere. Epic Games’ popular Fortnite Battle Royale game remains unavailable in the App Store even today Apple continues to promote competing Battle Royale games such as PUBG mobile instead.