Truth!??!! You can’t handle the truth!!! Actually the truth is that the cydia appstore is officially open for business.And the first paid package is “Cyntact”. First of all , you will be displayed with a pop-up window to upgrade Cydia. The upgrade is a 600k download, so you should be good on your data plan, if you’re not on wi-fi.
The Good
Despite all of your opinions (which you know i respect, but i got my own, and sometimes it’s a lil bit though to shake me) , i salute Saurik’s appstore idea. Because it will compete with the apple appstore. I dont know about you, but im getting tired of that bull shit app store, where you need to pass a ridiculous TOS in order for your app to be available to the public. To be honest the iPhone app market begins to be ( now more than ever ) a gold mine in the eyes of every developer out there. So , more and more apps are pure BS. Hey i got an app that farts buy it man, its only 99 cents. Dude, i can fart for you… FOR FREE.
FSM EXCLUSIVE DEAL Second of all, paid apps where available through cydia anyway. There’s nothing changed. Its not like OMG OMG , Cydia has apps that i need to pay for , now ! WTF?!?!?! I shall rise my fist to the sky and scream from the bottom of my lungs in some forgotten language “Damnn you Saurik” . Really… dudes…. get serious.
Third of all, Cydia represent maybe 90%+ of the reason we JB our devices. If those apps (the ones that you need to pay for ) were not in Cydia, the chances are they would be in the Apple’s appstore. So you would need to pay for them anyway. What’s the difference?!?!?! So stop whining. If you whining about this, chances are you’re a leech, and you wouldnt buy the app, not even your iPhone’s life would depend on it.
Anyway… let’s continue… In order to buy an app , you must authenticate yourself. You can do this in two ways. Either through Facebook Connect, or Google.Facebook Connect is a bitch to setup,and Facebook makes it hard as hell to use thier tools, but im glad Saurik did it. It’s a nice feature.
Also , i really like that the the dev(s) of the app(s) take some time to write a fully description of the app and other information that you might use.That’s another plus for the Cydia appstore.
The Bad
First of all , i would really like to see a Cydia Appstore TOS and policy. I dont know, maybe it’s there somewhere, but i didnt find such information. If you know something about it, please let me/us know. I will also try to contact Saurik, maybe he will provide me with some info on this matter. One thing, that its not surprising, but not pleasant though, it’s that some apps in the cydia appstore might not be DRM free. Again such a “news” it’s not surprising but not pleasant. To be honest, i dont think i know anyone that likes DRM.
Also , this is too premature to predict which way will Cydia go in , lets say, the next 4 months. At least for me it is. And im not talking from the business model point of view. Im talking from the dev-user point of view. Somebody commented ( sorry i dont remember whom, truly apologize ) on a previous post saying that he/she would hate if somebody will create a theme and put it in the cydia appstore for 99 cents or something. I would hate that too, but than again, i would really like to see some TOS and policy and what is eligible for the appstore and what not. To be honest i dont like to see themes and ringtones in the appstore. We just have to be patient and see which way , all of this, will go.
The Ugly
I expected to see , maybe a button , on the bottom of the screen that said “Appstore” or something like that. Not there. Im sure the appstore will suffer imprevements with time.
Final thoughts
I am not pro the cydia appstore nor con. I think this is a brilliant idea, and to be honest im surprised this didnt happened earlier. I am curious though about the apple response, to see how their paranoia will respond to such an action. And also very very very curious to see what will be in this appstore. Like i said above, now im not pro nor con, but if i see ringtones and themes in the appstore, the appstore is worthless to me.