Apple must have heaved a great sigh of relief when it heard its Christmas wish had been answered—Installous, the jailbroken iOS app pirating app from the Hackulous community, was finally dead. But not so fast, Apple. Now anyone can install pirated apps, and without having to jailbreak too.
The old adage is holding true. Where one pirate bites the dust, two more grow to take its place. The problem for Apple this time round is that both the Zeusmos and Kuaiyong services allow one-tap, instant installs of pirated apps on any iPhone, iPad or iPod touch. No jailbreak is required; just install the apps directly on your iOS device of choice. One has the gall to charge you for an installer app, unless you're jailbroken—charging you to install pirated apps you could just have bought in the first place—while one just installs from a web app.
Getting in contact with TNW, one of the services' developers, a 15-year-old thorn in Apple's side, says that it's actually just a way to allow homebrew apps without having to fork out for a yearly Apple developer account. But let's not kid ourselves here; this is piracy, plain and simple. Apple better get its act in gear because piracy via jailbreak is one thing, but piracy without having to root the system is quite another. [TNW]