Some notes on jailbreak…

By iStudiez Team May 21, 2010

We do not approve of using the jailbroken devices and here are some reasons:

  • Jailbreak contradicts EULA
  • Jailbreak is dangerous in terms of viruses and worms (it affects jailbroken iPhones running the SSH app with the default password)
  • Jailbreaking you device voids your warranty and you cannot expect any help from Apple if you start experiencing any hardware problems with your jailbroken device.

The above mentioned is not something that we as developers should be worried about as it is your decision and your responsibility. What’s most important is that jailbreak destabilizes your OS and leads to unpredictable performance problems.

Let us put it this way: we really messed it up with 1.3 and 1.3.1, but luckily 1.3.2 which got through approval very fast is stable and secure update. But despite it being stable and secure we still received hundreds of letters to our support with complaints about losing of data and crashes on launch of the app.

We were really surprised as we successfully managed to load on our devices the data backups that were sent to us with such complaints. And then it occurred to us that a jailbreak might not be something that we can just silently disapprove of (our devices are NOT jailbroken, you got it right).

You see, when we hear you lose your data, it makes us really worried about you as we understand how much you rely on iStudiez Pro and how much efforts you put into your studies.

Ok, so we found a buddy with a jailbroken iPod and tried loading one of the backups that we received. Yep, it crashed, all data deleted. Yep, a shock.

It took us a sleepless night to dig out the reason and when we turned the multitask app off, backups started to load normally.

So our solution to users who happen to have jailbroken devices and can’t load backup: restart your device in safe mode and load your data backup (it will load successfully).

That’s it guys. One simple app unapproved by Apple caused such problems for hundreds of people that we care about. Why don’t you just think it over taking into account that OS 4.0 will support native multitasking?

What upsets us the most is a number of negative reviews that were most likely written by users with jailbroken devices and may mislead the others and lower our motivation (which is not happening, but it might have and we are sure you don’t want that ;))…

Wow, finally we let it out, now getting back to finalizing sync feature….

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  • Josh

    Well, this was my problem, and you solved it, and for that I am thankful.

    I haven’t left a review yet (I rarely do), but I’ll go leave a glowing 5* one now :)

  • http://sammio2.blogspot.com Sam

    I just wanted to say… That you guys have been superb in dealing with this problem. I fully understand the implications of jail-breaking my device, and do NOT expect app developers to support apps running on JB devices the same as on standard OS. I can assure you that NONE of those negative reviews were from me, your app is fantastic, and the unexpected level of support is completely worthy of my money (btw I’m jailbroken, but that doesn’t mean I steal apps!)

    So from a satisfied user, thank you for being so helpful at a time when you didn’t have to be!

  • Tyler

    Glad you guys figured it out.

    I will say as an iPhone developer you need to think about jailbroken users only because there are soooo many. People like theming with Winterboard, multi-tasking with Backgrounder, and customizing in general with the various Cydia apps. I know it breaks the EULA and it’s considered a “no-no”. But at the end of the day, people are going to do it because it’s easy and has benefits. And for some people like myself, LockInfo on the Lockscreen is essential.

    In the future I would have a device handy that is Jailbroken. Consider it like keeping a version of IE 6 handy for a web developer. You may not want to support it because it sucks, but so many people still use it.

    And good job on the PR front. I know I’ll continue to use your software. And more importantly, what’s up with this new sync!? I would love to have the same data on my iPad and iPhone and go back and forth between the two!!!!!

  • Andrew

    There are only two reasons I jailbroke my phone… The first is the complete waste of space that is the lock screen (which I find even more ridiculous on the iPad. Seriously, why does a tablet even HAVE a lock screen?). Widgets are lovely, and the only thing I missed about my windows mobile phone was the ability to view my upcoming calendar events without having to actually go into the application. The constant visual reminder makes it hard to forget about something, and the lock screen is just the place to stick a calendar or other widget. The second is my desire to have 5 columns on the screen, because obviously I hate wasted space. All in all, my only reasons for jailbreaking are for visual improvements that Apple has decided I shouldn’t have control over. Hopefully they’ll make some changes that will fix these “mistakes,” but if it happens, I doubt it will be any time soon.

  • Thom

    fantastic, you couldn’t have said it better

  • towi

    I can’t understand how a developing company wonders about negative reviews ’cause of incompatibilitys when they did not even considered to have at last one testing device that is jailbroken, as there are probably thousands of customers who use that companies software on such a device.

    Note: Jailbreaking is not illegal and not dangerous! Jailbreakers were able to multitask long before OS 4.0 was announced. The same counts for Video-recording, Copy&Paste, Folders, Wallpapers, BT-Keyboards and countless other things.

    I really love iStudentPro and use it every day, but getting negative reviews because of bugs and incompatibilities with the large number of jailbroken devices is the way it goes on the app store and that is in my point of view the purpose of ratings and perfectly right,

    So stop complaining, get a better testing-device-pool and TEST BEFORE RELEASE!!!

  • Titanium

    I agree with you guys, but you should know that jailbreaking the iphone gives a lot of freedom that apple doesn’t. Talking about native multitasking, people like me that have an iphone 3g depend on jailbreak for running apps in the background. It’s sad, and we don’t like to see our devices run slow, but we have good reasons, it isn’t for fun, i think.

  • you

    First off, the grades update is great, it made the best app even better 😉
    BUT: why is the average grade not on the same scale as the grades?
    i chose a scale of A-F, but modified it to 1-5 because that’s what we have here in austria
    my average grade is 0,72 for some reason, when it should be 2,5
    please fix this, it’s not a big deal but it does annoy me a bit
    thanks!

  • you

    also, for some reason, some of my tests do not show up in the calendar view
    the little flag symbol is there, but neither the dot nor the test itself if you check the day’s lectures
    other tests show up just fine
    i tried everything from moving the test to another day to deleting the whole class and making a new one
    any ideas?

  • Cliff

    I have to say, without a jailbroken device, I wouldn’t be using either my iPhone or iPad.

    There are just too many useful things. For instance, traveling overseas. I still pay AT&T their monthly fees, but I’m sure as heck not going to pay their buddies the outrageous partner price…of which I pay practically NOTHING (compared to the US) simply by getting a pre-paid SIM.

    That and one of the great things about jailbreaking is that you get what you need NOW. For instance Backgrounder…I have all my homework in PDFs that I have saved on GoodReader. I need these in my iStudiez. Using Backgrounder, I save a dozen steps importing my daily notes in…and instead of taking 15 minutes, it take 5. If I have to take 15 minutes, I might just as well use my Moleskin to keep track of my classes. These sorts of programs are supposed to make your like quicker and simpler, not more complicated. I have a few ToDo apps that I have both Desktop and iPad/Phone apps…and if they were more school like, I’d use them…I can add all the info on my computer, copy past in a few seconds, and sync.

    But none of them work as well as iStudiez. They are great for managing my work, but not my school (I occasionally teach, and this app is just as useful for teaching as it is taking classes). iStudiez is GREAT software.

    I have to say, this is the only app that I have that didn’t work and/or crashed because of a jailbreak. It is a paid for app — and I pay for all my apps. As a former programmer, it would be hypocritical not to. As a former programmer (and I’ve helped friends with their iPhone apps previously), I’m not sure what the logic would be that would have data crash an app either…not doing any bounds checking to make certain the data is appropriate? Who knows. All I know is I *NEVER* expect data to not be corrupt when programming, and an app should be robust enough to notice this.

    That said, this is the best app I’ve found for managing the school day. It is well worth the price. It would be worth it at twice the price. Buy a test device, and jailbreak it. Try the software on the jailbroken device. You are going to be finding more and more of us that don’t want to live within Apple’s tight boundaries..I mean we aren’t kids any more (err…maybe we are! This is a school app!)…we are going to be doing what we need to do with our devices to make our day easier. For me? Backgrounded and being able to tether my iPad to my iPhone are the only two reasons I have by devices jailbroken. And I think that should be enough.

    So buy a device and see if it works. Otherwise, I’m going to finally have to buy a copy of Things for the iPad — still sore I spent so much $$$ on both the Desktop version and the iPhone ($50 for the desktop, $10 for the iPhone…and now they want ANOTHER $20 for the iPad version…I might have paid $10 for it). Your product is too good…but if it isn’t going to work with a jailbroken device, I need to move to something else because I want to *OWN* my device…not just rent it from Apple.

  • julian

    Andrew, actually is possible to put things and widgets in your ipad screen and lock screen without jailbreak it. as an example http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/stick-it-sticky-notes-for-ipad/id364874025?mt=8 so this is not a excuse for jailbreak your ipad

  • Lthm

    hey guys,
    i’m kinda confused here…i don’t understand what it means to ‘load your data backup’…

    i have entered safe mode, restarted it, but when I launch iStudiez Pro, it still crashes…

    can anyone help me?

    thx in advance

  • John

    I think that the argument of “You should support jailbroken iPhones because there are so many” is like saying “You should legalize cocaine because so many people do it”.

    It doesn’t change the fact that it is illegal and ultimately changes the behavior of your device. Additionally, because so many people do it in so many different ways, it removes the common denominator that the OS provides and creates too many unpredictable variables.

    Thank you guys for all your help with the initial bugs in the 1.3 version. Now that everything is all fixed, it’s working great on my non-jailbroken device.

  • Insilin

    I am one of the dreaded jailbreakers but the weird part is I don’t even have backgrounder installed and it just crashes when I try to start it. It looks like its trying to load but then just closes.

  • http://insomniaaddict.com/ Matt Stith

    John, Jailbreaking the device is not illegal. I own this device, I could use it to snort cocaine off of if I wanted. Uhh.. Sure THAT would be illegal, but not because Apple doesn’t want me snorting cocaine off of it. Apple frowns upon it, but it is MY device. I’m not renting it from Apple. I paid for it, with the money I earned, so that the device is now my property. Jailbreaking is NOT illegal!

    As a developer, I agree that supporting jailbroken devices is a pain though. I also believe it’s important to support jailbroken devices. I’m worried about piracy and all that, but there are ways to detect if the app thats running is a pirated copy. Search around a bit on Google and you can add some fun easter eggs for the pirates, like limiting the app to a trial version that only supports X number of assignments after 30 days or only works on tuesdays or something like that 😛

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