Ripdev, one of the earliest names in the iPhone jailbreaking community, the company that is associated with the development of Installer, which is arguably the first iPhone app store, much before Apple's official iPhone App Store came about and before Cydia took over as the leading jailbreak app store has now called it quits.
In a message posted on their website, the Ripdev team writes
"It's been a great two years, but unfortunately, the time has come for Ripdev to close its doors. There are many reasons for this, most of which we probably will never disclose (unless we are forced to). The important thing is that due to circumstances we will likely be unable to support the titles we have created over the years further."
The company has also assured its customers that while support and new upgrades shall no longer be made available, their repository on Cydia shall continue to exist till next year for the existing customers. One of their products Icy has been open sourced to enable future development.
While at the outset, the reason for their closure is not clear, folks at the 'iPhone in Canada' website have discovered the real reasons behind the unexpected shutdown tucked away in the page source of the Ripdev website
"Here's a bit of advise: don't blindly trust your business partners - one day it may turn out that they will steal a year's worth income of the company and create another one, leaving you without possibility to control what you have been creating for several years."
This has been a rather unfortunate end to a company that is well known for not only the Installer iPhone apps store, but also other iPhone software like Kate and Icy. However, Ripdev has not had a smooth journey through the past two years. Their software have always been notorious for crashing iPhones and probably that led to Cydia taking over Installer as the leading app store for jailbroken iPhones.
Nevertheless, Ripdev has played a very valuable role in shaping the jailbroken community to what it is today and we believe they shall be sorely missed. How have your experiences been with Ripdev? Please do tell us in the comments.
[via ModMyI, iPhone in Canada]
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good riddance to bad rubbish..
now if the dev team can get their act together we'd all win
whoa…
how about you try to to jailbreak something. seriously. I bet they are doing the best they can. So just seriously relax.
so sad must work directly under steve jobs balls lol
Used a few of their product from 'Installer' days but not had any bad experiences
personally, I liked the concept of ICY, it was quicker to install and reload than Cydia and was graphically simple.
As For them closing their doors for good, I wish them good luck with future ventures, I do hope they remain a part of the iPhone hacking community.
The future of app freedom remains with the likes of Cydia & Rock, The Devs who spend countless hours tinkering with code, and Us, the end users who refuse to be bound by pointless limitations.
To RipDev, thankyou for your work, I appreciate your time & effort, but as in life, the old blood gives way to the new, take solace in the fact that you were the JailBreak App ForeFathers.
May I say Bye Bye to the iPhone too? Jailbreak and Unlock had played an important role in the success of Apple iPhone and now its ended. So is about time for the iPhone to be ending soon? I hope so……take that Apple! You wins!
Moving on to Android/Droid/
What about this site? Its going to die too? LOL
Die?? No, but then it may do, but only after your Droid is recycled in the plastic back of a new iPhone.
I appreciate what Ripdev has done, but there will always be a Ripdev out there and all we need is one. Thanks and goodbye, Ripdev!
First MxTube and now this!. I have always jailbroken since iPhone 1.0.1 and it will be missed. However I use Cydia and it's hardly any different.
its a shame but to be honest no iphones have be able to use installer since 3.0 and anyway cydia is better
I personally like ROCK and CYNDIA. Thanks RipDEV for all the hard work.
Dam they created it and now their gone it got me stumped on y without them there nigth have not been an app store or a jailbreak at all.I wish them good luck. Well there probably would be a app store but it would take longer and other crap
a moment of scilence……………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
Good bye RIP dev
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