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Comment by Kylekramer | Hacker News Reader

If that is the logic, why make jailbreaking difficult at all? Say Apple took the Android model of hiding installing apps from unknown sources in settings and warning users about the dangers, but didn't take the Android model of allowing almost any app in the store. The review process would still weed out the viruses for the 99.999%, and the .001% can be happy and not have to make security holes public just so they can install any app they like.

Seems like a win-win.

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The problem with that (from Apple's perspective) is that the number of users who are going to somehow get tricked into toggling the 'allow from unknown sources' switch and get their phones messed with is almost certainly larger than the number of people who would legitimately be happy from having the capability.

So you make it a hardware switch. "To jailbreak your iDevice, open up the case with this special screwdriver, and short jumper X." No person is going to accidentally be tricked into doing that by a popup window, but it's easy enough for people that actually care.

(Even Google's Chromebook strategy is good; a hardware switch.)

Say Apple took the Android model of hiding installing apps from unknown sources in settings and warning users about the dangers

With this model Apple misses out on their 30% cut of app sales.

1) They make hardly any money from their 30 percent.

2) Why is it obvious that everybody would suddenly switch to not selling through the App Store?

I don’t think alternate app stores on Android are terribly successful. Maybe they are, I don’t know, but I haven’t heard about it. People stick to the defaults and what’s convenient and easily discoverable.

Such a switch would be relevant for very few people. There is no reason Apple couldn’t do it. It just wouldn’t be good or bad for them. They can be lazy.

> 1) They make hardly any money from their 30 percent.

This is fascinating. Do you have any sources?

Here is the relevant quote from Apple’s CFO Peter Oppenheimer, made during one of Apple’s quarterly conference calls: “Regarding the App Store and the iTunes stores, we are running those a bit over break even and that hasn’t changed.”

This is by now an old quote (from January 2010 – how time runs) so things might have changed. There just isn’t any more current information. Nevertheless, if you look at Apple’s numbers it’s pretty obvious that they make the vast majority of their money by selling hardware. Music, videos and apps make the hardware more attractive, not a lot of money for Apple.

> If that is the logic, why make jailbreaking difficult at all?

Apple pays support costs (facilities, labor, etc.) for everyone who brings in an iOS device to a store, and it's their best interest to allow their personnel to turn problems around quickly. If an in-warranty device is "broken," they can send the customer home with a refurb one within fifteen minutes (I've done this for a screen). An easy jailbreak means more devices will come in broken, they'll have to keep more replacements in stock, and they won't necessarily be able to turn customers away for it because there might not be a good way to detect a jailbreak.

Jailbreaking is also a security problem for enterprises. If a user can run arbitrary un-sandboxed code, there's no way the device's owner can trust it to receive sensitive emails, be wiped remotely, and so on.

It is pretty clear that if Apple were to enable unknown sources (my comment was more of an unlikely hypothetical intended to point out that Apple isn't really that jailbreak friendly), it would void all warranties and be very detectable. Also, just like Android, it could easily be turned off in enterprise settings.

You can enable unknown sources: just buy a developer key for $100. It still doesn't allow you to mess with the lower-level system stuff that's the big appeal for jailbreaking.

Jailbreaking is more like rooting an Android than the unknown sources checkbox.

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