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Wow! 10M Pirated iPhone Apps Downloaded!

MDMac said:
Why not try and implement some anti-crack feature like the makers of BeeJive do? Then you won't have people stealing your app(s) AND you'll also save money by not having to buy boxes of tissues to wipe away your tears. :D
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If you read on Hackulous forums, you'll find that the hackers just LOVE it when developers spend time on DRM. Many do it for a hobby and see it as a "game" more interesting than the app itself.

iPhone app piracy is just a testament to how well the appstore is doing. I will tell you that middle income families with cash are not bothering to do the whole jailbreak->appsync->download process. It's just poor teenagers and college students who wouldn't buy the app anyway. Consider it free advertising.

Any developer that whines about piracy never has proof on how it is truly hurting them.
 
armoguy94 said:
Piracy for the iPhone and iPod Touch is a great thing. There are PLENTY of people who will buy the apps they like, and trash the ones they don't. The ones that won't buy probably wouldn't have ever bought any of the apps in the first place if there wasn't piracy. Since this is a mobile device, the apps can easily get great exposure when people ask to see their expensive little toy to check it out. Piracy isn't stealing. It's copying. New copies are added and nothing is taken away from the developer.. the developer loses nothing from piracy. The majority, the vast majority I'm talking about, purchase their goods - at least, when it comes to the iPhone and iPod touch, cause those are expensive and people in developing countries are the ones who pirate most and a ton less those people have any of those devices anyways.
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I can not agree more.
I was looking for a specific functionality in synths and sequencers and ended up with 20 purchased apps, that none had what I needed. I wish I went the pirated way, but I was too lazy to jailbreak my iThing again. There is much to be desired about the description of most apps. And some support and home pages contain nothing valuable. Words like first and geatest do not say anything about the app.
And again *piracy is not stealing*.
 
walldawg84 said:
That seems more than a little silly to me. It's like saying "hey apple, i downloaded an album, but i didn't really like it so i want my money back" after you paid because you wanted it.

If you want it, buy it. If you don't, don't. If you buy something and find you don't like it, well then you should've been more discerning about what you were throwing your money at.
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while I don't in any way think it is ok to steal apps
your argument here makes no sense
If I purchased that album from, say, borders instead of iTunes, I could return it within a certain time frame. At least, though, theres an alternative to iTunes for purchasing music, should you feel you want a chance to return it, or would like a physical copy
If I purchased a game on the app store, theres no way back. Can't return it (like if I purchased a game at a store), and can't trade it in for even a small amount of my money back after I've played it, or sell it on eBay
The trend of offering games and music digitally, though convenient, is, in my opinion, not a good thing. Even the big game companies (sony, nintendo, microsoft) are beginning to progress more towards downloads instead of physical disks (PSP Go only plays downloaded games, Xbox having downloadable games, Wii playing old titles via download, etc)
 
I pirate because I want to know what I'm purchasing beforehand.

I don't want to get burned on downloading some POS application....like Pocket God. Ugh, biggest mistake ever.

I haven't redownloaded that application since I bought it, I don't even use it! I see no harm in trying it out first, then buying. If I don't like it, the developer doesn't get my support. If I like an app, I'll buy it...to support the developer.
 
Michael CM1 said:
You should contact whoever is hosting that site and try to get it shut down. I know, I'm probably naive to think something like that could work, but assume you charge 99 cents per app, that's a lotta money gone. This is even worse than people who think it's OK to just rip a movie or CD because you are in possession of it, nevermind copyright laws.
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No this is assuming every pirated app would of been a purchase and this is no where near true. How bout this. The people who never would of bought the apps, downloaded them for free, liked it and told their friends. Then some of the friends bought it. People using your app and liking it is a good thing. Will lead to more sales in the long run.
 
Sparky9292 said:
If you read on Hackulous forums, you'll find that the hackers just LOVE it when developers spend time on DRM. Many do it for a hobby and see it as a "game" more interesting than the app itself.

iPhone app piracy is just a testament to how well the appstore is doing. I will tell you that middle income families with cash are not bothering to do the whole jailbreak->appsync->download process. It's just poor teenagers and college students who wouldn't buy the app anyway. Consider it free advertising.

Any developer that whines about piracy never has proof on how it is truly hurting them.
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(Speculation, not fact)

vanakaru said:
I can not agree more.
I was looking for a specific functionality in synths and sequencers and ended up with 20 purchased apps, that none had what I needed. I wish I went the pirated way, but I was too lazy to jailbreak my iThing again. There is much to be desired about the description of most apps. And some support and home pages contain nothing valuable. Words like first and geatest do not say anything about the app.
And again *piracy is not stealing*.
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Spoken like true non-developers. The time effort and testing of apps by developers I guess means nothing. Then to see your work hacked and downloaded on another website is discouraging. Sure there is crap on the App store, but how did it get there? Did any of you approve it? No? Then whose responsible for the crap in the Apps Store?
How would you feel if someone stole your car, motorcycle, stereo or HD TV cause they wanted to try it out. Same principle.
 
vanakaru said:
I can not agree more.
I was looking for a specific functionality in synths and sequencers and ended up with 20 purchased apps, that none had what I needed. I wish I went the pirated way, but I was too lazy to jailbreak my iThing again. There is much to be desired about the description of most apps. And some support and home pages contain nothing valuable. Words like first and geatest do not say anything about the app.
And again *piracy is not stealing*.
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To look at it another way--
If I run a grocery store, and someone comes in an buys a steak, then stands outside and magically duplicates the steak and gives them to anyone that wants one, that still takes steak sales from me. Sure, nobody came in and took one off my shelf, so I don't lose inventory the way I would with physical theft, but it's still a sale lost.

Sure, most of the duplicate steaks would be going to people who weren't coming in to buy steaks, but some definately would be. And how many people would take one bite from the duplicate steak, find that it's a very good, juicy steak, throw it out, and come inside to buy another one? I sure wouldn't. I'd just keep the duplicate steak.
 
buccsmf1 said:
can we please STOP comparing this to ripping movies. JUST STOP. Ripping a movie is like taking 0.000000001 cents out of the pocket of some multi-millionaire production company CEO.

"OMG, if enough people do this he'll have to wait 2 extra days to make enough money to buy his $400,000 Bentley. OH THE HUMANITY"

A massive portion of the apps on the appstore are just regular joes, trying to make enough to make a living. There's a big difference between stealing movies and stealing apps. I choose do do neither, but i really don't care if some guy pays $5 to rent a movie and then decides to record it. I do however, have a problem with people stealing apps
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Uh.. the CEO isn't really making the movie at all - 'regular' guys are involved in movie production too you know? Same with music.. everyone downloads illegally because they think Britney won't be bankrupt if they do so, but they forget about the engineers, studio staff and hundreds of others who are involved in production, distribution, etc.

It affects everyone.
 
What are you gonna do, its inevitable. You open a business, eventually someone is going to steal something from you. thats just how things are. All software gets pirated, you're not special.
 
sinsin07 said:
(Speculation, not fact)



Spoken like true non-developers. The time effort and testing of apps by developers I guess means nothing. Then to see your work hacked and downloaded on another website is discouraging. Sure there is crap on the App store, but how did it get there? Did any of you approve it? No? Then whose responsible for the crap in the Apps Store?
How would you feel if someone stole your car, motorcycle, stereo or HD TV cause they wanted to try it out. Same principle.
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I download cracks to test out apps. if they meet my needs I will purchase it. if it doesn't meet my needs or is a piece of crap, I delete it.
The apps store to me is like going out to eat, sitting down, telling the server you want a steak, paying the bill, then getting your food only to find out it is chicken fried steak. their arguement you ordered a steak and its a steak sorry if you don't like it, thank you for your purchase and come again
 
ThunderSkunk said:
Fine by me. ...and here's how it plays out beyond that.

I bought three audio apps at $10+ each because they were supposed to have a simple midi sequencer in them. Paid the $, downloaded, opened app, no midi sequencer, closed app, deleted. Cost to find out that nobody makes a decent midi sequencer for the iphone: about $40. And then I've got digidrummer, which is so crashy it hasn't even successfully opened in two update periods.

Did I complain? No, I just stopped buying apps from the appstore. So now it's developers turn to lose.

I went back to a jailbroken phone instead, got a little extra truly useful functionality from utilities on Cydia, and now my phone does exactly everything it did a year ago, and does it well. I'll stick with firmware updates for added functionality. No need to piss more money away on missing functionality & bad programming on those out to make a quick buck.

But, now that I know about pirating, I might reconsider. I could download pirate apps to try them out, before buying them and getting a decent, clean install. If you've done a good enough job, that site may result in you selling me an app. If not, you don't deserve my money anyway, or as you put it, **** out of luck.
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Your looking for a midi sequencer in the App store? Stop being cheap and by a real one. What the hell did you expect? Here's one that cost less than a new non-sub Iphone:

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/220224-REG/Yamaha_QY100_QY100_24_Track_Portable.html
 
So in my iphone all the apps, like 7 pages worth, that I have are all free except for two which are that texas hold'em and traffic control?. I don't think it's right that people are stealing these apps but I also don't think that the developers would be getting money from me or from those people that steal them. I'm not saying that all the apps are bad or anything like that or that they don't deserve to be bought. I'm just saying that some people are just not into buying much of anything these days. A lot of people see these apps as luxury items much like software for your computer except for the OS unless you happen to use Linux.
 
yes but

dejo said:
Borders doesn't allow returns on opened CDs / DVDs though.
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you can sit in the store all day and go for a week straight and read a whole book if you want. personally I love shareware lets you try the program for say 30 days if you like it you buy it if don't you uninstall it. there are too many apps that do the same job and have similar functions so a certain times I am guilty of getting several similar apps trying them deleting the ones I don't want and the ones I do want and then buying them.
 
Good things being said on both sides. I know if I was a developer I would prob be peeved that my app was being hacked. BUT as a person that has d/l hacked apps I must say I feel safer with my money being able to "try" before I buy. I put hacked Navagon and Sygic on my iPhone to try out which one I liked. I liked Sygic better and chose to go into iTunes and pay for it so I could get the updates and such. NOW, not liking Navagon (and I don't) I would of shelled out $70 for an app I didn't really like. Without being able to install either as a hacked app, I would not of spent the money on either so both would of lost out. I am a nurse and was looking for a medication app I could use.... I have had Epocrates in the past on my pocket PC and d/l their free app on the iPhone and like it. Lexi has a $300 app, put that on my phone and decided it just wasn't worth the $300 when I can get much of what I need from Epocrates for free. That would of been a $300 mistake. Hacked apps are MY protection as a consumer without them I would have NONE.
 
I've bought several apps but strangely, the ones I have bought lately have all been ones only available through Cydia such as iBlacklist and MCleaner. Not sure if I would have bought them if these apps didn't offer a trial since they were $12.

These types of threads give others the idea to download these cracked apps. It's entirely too easy to do and it was from a thread like this that I learned how to get them on my phone.
 
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