In interesting turn of events the maker of jailbreak store Cydia has filed a lawsuit against Apple. In the lawsuit Cydia’s maker has alleged that Apple has used anticompetitive practices and as a result established an illegal monopoly over the iOS app distribution reports The Washington Post.
According to the lawsuit filed by Cydia if Apple had not used its “anticompetitive acquisition and maintenance of an illegal monopoly over iOS app distribution” then iPhone users would have been able to choose where they want to download apps from and developers would have a choice over which iOS app distributor they want to sell their app in.
Company’s spokesman Fred Sainz says Apple will review the lawsuit filed by Cydia’s maker while denying that the Apple is a monopoly, citing Android as a competition.
What makes Cydia’s lawsuit unique and different from Apple’s ongoing battle with the likes of Epic Games and Spotify is that while those lawsuits alleged Apple’s monopolistic behaviour inside the App Store and talk about the App Store policy, Cydia’s lawsuit presents itself as a direct competitor to the App Store. This arguably makes this lawsuit more interesting than the others faced by the company.
Cydia was created by Jay Freeman, commonly known as Saurik within the iPhone hacking community. He created Cydia back in 2008 as the first ever App Store for the iPhone where users could install non-stock apps from. This was even before then Apple had introduced the App Store for iPhone.
