iPhone App Store Apps Hacked - Is it Good News?

A group of hackers claim to have hacked Apple's DRM on Sega's Super Money Ball for the iPhone and many more iPhone games.

I must admit I never saw this coming as Apple's FairPlay DRM has been used for so many years to protect content sold on iTunes stores.

It appears that the method for hacking iPhone apps has been there for quite sometime as folks at Haklabs have posted a step-by-step guide to install the cracked version of Super Monkey Ball on a jailbroken iPhone running firmware 2.0 couple of weeks back.

Super Monkey Ball is one of the most popular games for the iPhone, and is currently one of the Top 5 Paid iPhone Apps. It is available via the App Store for $9.99.

The method is only for the technically inclined as it involves getting your hands dirty with some command line tools.

If the news is indeed true then the security breach can have a major impact for iPhone developers who were hoping to make make money selling their iPhone apps via the App Store.

I am not too sure if this is good news for iPhone users in the long term. If the iPhone Apps can be cracked and available for download for free then iPhone developers would not make as much money and ultimately will not be interested in developing the next killer app for the iPhone platform.

I guess jailbreaking the iPhone to install unofficial iPhone applications was okay, but installing cracked iPhone apps seems to be crossing the line.

It will be interesting to see how Apple or iPhone game developer, Sega, react to this news.

Stay tuned here at iPhone Hacks, we will keep you posted as the story develops.

What are your thoughts?

[Source: Gizmodo via Haklabs]

 

Top iPhone Hacks Categories:

Hacks
iPhone Applications
Unlock iPhone
JailBreak iPhone
iPhone Tips & Tricks
iPhone Games
iPhone News 

 

What next?