Apple's iPhone jailbreaking was all the rage among iPhone power users.
While iOS has been the closest rival to Google's Android, iOS is more strict. The only to add functionalities to an iOS device was to jailbreak it. This method has been done throughout many iPhone generations, despite that U.S. Copyright Office has allowed iPhone users to jailbreak their phones.
Cydia is Apple's App Store replacement. It allows jailbroken iPhones, iPads and iPods users to download apps and tools from a variety of sources.
The majority of the apps available on Cydia, came from three major repositories: BigBoss, ModMyi and ZodTTD/MacCiti.
Two of them are shutting down.
Both the ModMyi and ZodTTD/MacCiti repositories have formally announced that they have closed their doors to new package submissions.
Their repositories have been “archived,” which means that all existing packages from each repository remain available to download from Cydia. And developers who depended on ModMyi or ZodTTD/MacCiti to host their packages, need to choose a different Cydia repository.
"While it’s true that I promised that we will keep the repository alive, the costs of running the repository have been higher than estimated and it kept growing," said ModMy editor-in-chief Dennis Bednarz. "Not all promises can be kept and I won’t try to blur your vision and try to excuse myself. I have failed you and I am terribly sorry for doing so. I tried my best, but it wasn’t enough. We only hope that this won’t result in us losing your trust."
iPhone jailbreaking is having a declining public interest. With Apple releasing frequent updates, each update has made it hard for developers to keep up in creating jailbreaks. What's more Apple has also made it more and more difficult to jailbreak its software every year.
With so few people attempting a new jailbreak, Cydia repositories don’t produce as much revenue as they once able, making it tougher for them to maintain themselves given the costs of doing so.
As for BigBoss, it's becoming the last major repository on Cydia. It aims to continue until it's no longer financially capable to do so.
BigBoss repository previously opted for not to accept theme-based packages, and focus primarily on jailbreak tweaks. But with ModMyi and ZodTTD/MacCiti shutting down, BigBoss maintainer Optimo declared that the repository is changing its policy.