JailbreakCon: the biggest Jailbreaking convention in the world, which has kicked off over the past few years was held earlier this month in southern San Francisco. JailbreakCon grows more and more every time it’s held and the latest event was no exception. There were speeches from popular Jailbreakers ih8sn0w, Pod2g and Cydia’s own Saurik which drove a huge turnout to the event and gave fans something to remember for a long time – and hopefully, they do because the event travels around from year to year. Last year’s event, of course, was held in the great London, UK. So without further ado, let’s break down all of the major happenings from this year’s event.
You may remember if you also read my work over at our sister site, I wrote on a new Twitter client called Flurry earlier on in the year. Well, the night started with the founder, of that app, Aaron Ash, giving a speech not just on his app but also on the key fundamental differences between the app store and the Cydia store, labeling many pros and cons for each. Some of which, are not so obvious to everyday me and you.
Albeit one opinion rather than fact, Aaron Ash gave many great points that are hard to argue against. From a developer’s point of view, there are obviously going to be many preferring the app store over Cydia because its audience is far greater with literally hundreds of millions downloading iOS apps. It’s not just the extra coin like many people might believe that this is why it’s more popular, but developers want to be seen. It’s about achievement and having your app used more generally means a greater achievement, so it’s always going to be a tough mold to break. In saying that, there’s no doubt the Jailbreaking community is growing and so are the Cydia downloads to go along with it. No one is arguing that, but developers must come to the Jailbreaking side for its continued growth heading into the future.
It was then Josh Tucker, a former Engadget employee who took the stage to show off a few tweaks he had been working on including Emblem, Scale, and Merge.
Next up was Carsten Heinelt. If you haven’t heard of him or can’t put a face to the name, he is the guy behind one of the most successful Cydia apps to date called iFile. iFile has gone on to record over 20 million downloads (albeit most of the illegal), but he remains positive about his venture moving forward. With expectations of the iFile tweak are for it to continue to grow in the coming years, and the new drop-box feature coming out before the year’s end it will undoubtedly help his cause.
Then it was none other than Pod2g, the man currently working on the iOS untethered Jailbreak, that took the stage. He spoke of the corona exploit in iOS 5 and also gave listeners great insight into how he does what it is that he does – hacking. He is all too aware of people anxiously waiting for the iOS untethered Jailbreak to come out and let the crowd know that it will still be quite some time before they manage to get it, but he along with the team are working on it day-by-day.
iH8Sn0w, the man who came up with the Jailbreak tweak suitable for Windows was next. His speech consisted of teaching people about SHSH Blobs, something that confuses many as well as APTickets.
Several Cydia developers of apps and tweaks like Ryan Petrich, then spoke on stage about their latest works and what’s coming in the future.
The day was then wrapped up suitably by Jay Freeman, or the man people might know as Saurik – the man who created Cydia. It was all business for Saurik, who spoke about how Apple made its way to being such a successful company. It then quickly turned to piracy and the effect it has on these companies.