If you have known the very first iPhones, you must surely remember Cydia. This application store was created by Jay “Saurik” Freeman in 2007, well before the AppStore. It was then reserved for users who had jailbroken devices. Jay Freeman said that in 2010, Cydia had nearly 4.5 million users.
The success of this app store gradually ran out of steam when Apple decided to launch the AppStore. The Cupertino company also took the opportunity to make the jailbreak of its devices more and more difficult.
After several years of silence, Jay Freeman returned to the forefront to tackle the apple brand. As reported by our colleagues from the Vice site, he filed a complaint against Apple for monopoly!
Apple would not leave the choice to users
Jay Freeman has a grudge against Apple. In his complaint, he explains that the firm maintains a “Illegal monopoly on the distribution of iOS applications. ” According to him, this would prevent users from freely choosing how they want to get apps.
He added that without this practice, developers would also be free to choose any iOS app vendor of their choice. The lawyers hired by Jay Freeman to plead his case work for the firm of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart and Sullivan Law. The latter have for the moment abstained from any comment.
Cydia follows in the footsteps of Epic Games
For his part, Jay Freeman did not hesitate to give his opinion at the microphone of the Washington Post.
“It’s your phone and you should be able to do whatever you want with it”, did he declare.
For its part, Apple defended itself by explaining that this monopoly story had been fabricated, because Android already exists.
In any case, Cydia seems to have taken an example from Epic Games. As a reminder, four months ago, the developer of Fortnite had filed a complaint against the Cupertino company. This time around, Apple was accused of anti-competitive practices. Epic Games particularly deplores the fact that the tech giant take 30% commission on games sold on the AppStore.
Apple responded to this complaint by stating that Epic Games was “A multi-billion dollar company that just doesn’t want to pay for the enormous value it gets from the AppStore. “
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