Apple is up in arms over a unaffiliated iPhone app store that has just recently started selling applications. The store Cydia is selling a number of applications which are not authorized for one reason or another to be sold in the official iTunes Apps store. This store isn’t accessible to all iPhone or iPod touch users. It is only available those who are willing to “jailbreak” their phones. A common term to most mobile heads out their “jailbreaking” involves taking certain Apple imposed locks on the device to allow to use a whole different variety of apps that Apple is not willing to offer.

Apple has responded to this with their regular legal threats. They are maintains that the jail breaking should not be permitted because it exposes iPhone users to security risks and lowers barriers which prevent their iPhones from being targets. Despite all of this being true it isn’t clear what law users would be breaking if they decide to do something like this to a piece of equipment they own themselves. Are they going to revoke iPhone privileges if they discover a user who has made unapproved modifactions to a device? This idea of outlawing certain actions you can do with your own property brings up privacy issues as well.

There are however copyright implications which definitely could cross the lines of piracy in regards to Apple’s OS and whether developers are allowed to manipulate it for their own gains.

A lot of Apple’s threats are on shaky ground and could be conceived as being anti-competitive, but their beef with copyright on the OS definitely has legs. But their motives should always be questioned as they have millions of iPhones in the world and currently have an almost complete strangle hold on the apps side of the business, which with tens of thousands of apps for sale and those numbers growing every day, has been very lucrative for them.

In the meantime Cydia is going to start offering some pretty cool apps that you won’t be able to get elsewhere. The only catch is that you do have to jail break your device. This will probably make Apple cry. Do you want to do that?

In any case, all of this does bring up questions of the value of open source programming and other OS options like Symbian S60 or Google’s rising start Android. Questions that we aren’t willing to answer, but maybe you are.

What do you think of Apple’s posturing? Do you think they have a leg to stand on.

[via TG Daily]