Cydia Looking to Introduce Paid Store

[Vincent Ferrari]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://i.gizmodo.com/5165362/cydia-opening-parallel-paid-app-store-for-jailbreak-apps' target='_blank'>http://i.gizmodo.com/5165362/cydia-...-jailbreak-apps</a><br /><br /></div><p><em>"Cydia has been the hub of the iPhone gray market for some time now, but developer Jay Freeman is planning on turning the jailbroken app manager into a questionably licit competitor to the App Store. Converting Cydia into a proper application store won't be complicated, and more or less amounts to Freeman adding a centralized payment service to the software. His competitive ambitions, though, aren't so subtle: He told the WSJ that "the overworking goal is to provide choice" and that he plans on match or beat Apple's commission for downloaded apps."</em></p><p><img src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com/resizer/thumbs/size/600/at/auto/1236345222.usr18053.jpg" style="border: 1px solid #d2d2bb;" /></p><p>Sounds like a good idea.&nbsp; Not that I'll ever see it, of course, because I refuse to jailbreak my iPhone, but if you're into that sort of thing, this might be the door that independent developers have been waiting to open up forever.&nbsp; No more approval process, no more restrictive standards about what an app can do, and no more denied apps.&nbsp; From a developer standpoint it's a big win.</p>

[Underwater Mike]

I jailbroke my phone but wound up reverting it. Even with no additional apps installed, it somehow wound up running slower. I'd love to get that issue straightened out so that I could open the phone again.

[Tim Williamson]

I jailbroke my phone but wound up reverting it. Even with no additional apps installed, it somehow wound up running slower. I'd love to get that issue straightened out so that I could open the phone again.

I'd be interested to see a benchmark comparison between jailbroken/non-jailbroken. Mine's always been jailbroken since I use T-Mobile, and I've never really used a non-jailbroken iPhone for an extended period of time, so at this point I'm fine if it's a little slower.

One thing to keep in mind, if you do jailbreak and start installing a bunch of background processes, then your available memory will be lower and the phone will probably run slower.

I try to keep my background processes to a minimum, I have a program that adds icons to the title bar, a calendar on the lock screen, then another app called SBSettings that is called by swiping a finger across the titlebar. It allows me to have instant access to enable/disable wifi/BT/EDGE/SSH and adjust brightness. It also displays system info (memory, Wifi IP, EDGE/3G IP). But that's it for my 3rd-party background processes.

I think a paid jailbroken app store is a great idea, I would totally be willing to pay for a lot of the apps coming from there. I just hope he can keep it running. If Apple doesn't give him trouble (long shot), I bet he'll have no problem making an income from Cydia.