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Crackulous, while surrounded by some initial humor, wasn’t funny for developers who work night and day to feed their families only to see their work ripped off. (Come on, how many of us would like it if developers walked off without paying for their ultra-sized combo meals at our work!). Well, now it looks like some of them are fighting back.
Christina Warren over at TUAW talked to the folks behind the new Kali Anti-Piracy service and liked what she saw:
Essentially, Ripdev has figured out how to put an extra wrapper around iPhone apps, which not only prevents the app from launching or functioning properly if it has been cracked, but also prevents the current cracking tools from working on the app at all. Even better, this process only uses documented and allowed calls, making it SDK compliant. Oh — and if the app is legitimately purchased, it can run on a jailbroken iPhone without a problem.
Daring Fireball, for their part, argues that the best anti-piracy doesn’t make itself immediately known, but also doesn’t simply kill a pirated app from running: that might just spread rumors that the app is unstable instead of protected. He references one of my favorite anti-piracy stories of the recent age, involving developer Panic.
In general, however, the iPhone has a unique ID, knows who you are, and where you are, so we have to wonder if even the idea of “corroding the soul” isn’t enough to stop piracy, the threat of angry developers pwning the pirates might constrain it slightly?
This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.
iPhone Anti-Pirates Strike Back
Apple Insider is theorizing that Apple’s long delayed, potentially dead iPhone Push Notification Service (PNS) may simply be waiting on the next release of Apple’s server, OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard.
We all know the background already: Apple announced a PNS back at WWCD 2008 as a work around for some forms of multi-tasking. It would send status updates (numbered badges like Email, sound alarms and popups like Calendar) for things like IM and Twitter clients, but still wouldn’t do anything for streaming music apps, for example. Never-the-less, it’s September release window came and went, with the service disappearing from early betas, unseen and unheard from since. (Unless you’re one of those who believes the App Store icon is beta testing PNS already — and not too consistently if so).
Interestingly, Apple Insider goes into RIM’s and Microsoft’s push technology, the former using the carrier channel to push updates with SMS-like technology, the latter using specially formatted push emails to update calendars, tasks, etc. Apple, by contrast, is said to be using standards-based Instant Messenger technology (XMPP).
If Apple needs to make the PNS, you know, work before they release it, and Snow Leopard Server is providing the back-end needed for it to work, then a delay is certainly better than a disastrous release like MobileMe’s. We’ll need to see more, however, before we really know if Snow Leopard Server is really connected and, if so, whether or not we’ll really see PNS released with it, or if PNS is truly dead and Apple is investigating true multitasking for the iPhone.
So, we’re left with the age-old questions: Is Apple still planning on releasing PNS? And are we willing to wait for a rock-solid solution? Or do we just want real multi-tasking now?
This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.
iPhone Push Notification Service Waiting on Mac Snow Leopard Server?
