Popular online iOS jailbreak retailer Cydia Store is now closed to its patrons, disabling purchases after almost a decade of operations.
Owner Jay Freeman, also known as Saurik, announced the news in a post on Reddit two days ago. The shutting down of the service, which is supposed to be done next week, will take effect immediately. He advised users to delete their PayPal accounts from their respective profiles.
Although users can still access existing downloads through the store and purchases via third-parties, they can no longer purchase apps through the store starting this week.
Why Cydia Store Is Shutting Down
The software engineer stated that the main reason for the closure is the service is not making any profit. He is now losing money due to a recent discovery of security vulnerability and as a result from his end, it appears that no one is buying anything anymore.
The store does not make sufficient revenue at this time to pay for hosting fees. Consequently, he has to defray the cost of serving many terabytes of bandwidth per month out of his personal funds.
"The reality is that I wanted to just shut down the Cydia Store entirely before the end of the year, and was considering moving the timetable up after receiving the report (to this weekend); this service loses me money and is not something I have any passion to maintain," Freeman stated.
No Data Leak
However, he assures his clients that this is not a data leak as what people might try to presume. He denied losing his access to PayPal authorization tokens that will allow other people to take Cydia Store customers' money from their PayPal account.
"This categorically is not the issue at hand today and there is no concern about the information in your Cydia account that I know of at this time," Saurik explained in his Reddit post.
About Cydia
Cydia, founded by Freeman, started its operation a decade ago after the first iPhone had been jailbroken. It functions as an alternative to App Store for jailbroken devices that include iPhones, iPads, and iPods. Jailbreaking had gained a cult following and built a solid fan base along the way. That is until its popularity has dwindled in the intervening years.
While the future for the Cydia community now seems bleak, Freeman said that he will release a more formal statement about his plans this coming week.
