Company known to be hostile toward jailbreaking

Toyota's Scion theme for jailbroken iOS devices has been pulled from Cydia as a result of pressure from Apple, according to a report. The theme was created by Velti, an ad agency working on behalf of Toyota. In asking for the Scion theme to be pulled, a contact from Velti is claimed to have explained that the order came from Toyota, which in turn had been pushed by Apple to remove the theme and end the campaign. Toyota complied so as to "maintain their good relationship with Apple," says the Velti contact.

The Scion theme was significant as the first example of a major corporation choosing to market to the jailbreaker audience. Apple has traditionally been hostile towards jailbreaking however, invalidating warranty claims for hacked devices and in some cases deliberately sabotaging hacks when developing firmware updates. In July 2010 an Apple spokesman claimed that jailbreaking "can severely degrade the [iPhone] experience" in response to jailbreaking being sanctioned under the DMCA.

Toyota may be facing pressure because it lends credibility to the Cydia platform, from which Apple makes no revenue, unlike the App Store. Apple may also want to nudge Toyota into choosing iAd for marketing. The ad network is extremely expensive though, with a $500,000 base price that doesn't yield detailed metrics.

by MacNN Staff