This is a bad news for iOS developers as piracy on Apple App Store is about to hit the next big level.
Hackulous is the mastermind behind making piracy on App Store possible. Now, they have been working and knock off DRM on Apple’s iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad products, for about two years. Why? They do what they do because they believe that Apple’s App Store is unfair to consumers since it has no trial service or refund policy.
Hackulous’s system comprises of two parts : Apptrackr, a web-based index of cracked apps; Installous, the app on jailbroken Apple devices which allows the installation of apps found via Apptrakr . The number is huge, there are around 10million devices which use them.
Hackulous is about to make it worse by providing updates to the existing software that would make it ever easier to share pirated IPA files (Apps). In the past, owners of App Store apps would have to crack the software using special instructions and then upload it manually to apptrakr and share it to millions. Obviously, there were millions who were passive either due to ignorance or due to lack of ability.
But Installous will now bring a new update that will make it possible to share apps installed on any iOS device to auto-upload in background to Apptrakr servers, distributed over devices, just like BitTorrent.
“Essentially what will happen is when you’re using Installous you’ll get a little pop up that says ‘Hey, you have an application that Apptrakr doesn’t. We will add the application to a queue in the background (if you say yes) and it will start uploading tiny pieces of it, kind of like a torrent, up to the cloud’,” Dissident explains.
With hundreds or thousands of copies of the same piece of software, and little tiny pieces of each upload from each person’s device to the cloud in order to make one final copy, which will then become available from Apptrakr. From there it will be available for 10 million+ devices to download. Imagine how much easier it would become, and how much inevitable.
Going further, Hackulous has plans to pirate Mac App Store as well. They already have the stuff ready but, as per the author, they don’t wish to discourage developers, hence they would wait till Mac App Store gets significant amount of “crappy apps”.
In his own words:
“We don’t want to release kickback as soon as the [Mac App] Store gets released. I have a few reasons for that,” says Dissident. “So we’re not going to release Kickback until well after the store’s been established, well after developers have gotten their applications up. We don’t want to devalue applications and frustrate developers.”
As per the estimates, the plan is to roll it out sometime around feb-march time frame.
It would be a mess of pirated apps all over the Apple stores. Will Apple counter the attack ? They’ve to!
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