Technology Slice Blog

Mac App Store - Cydia is somewhat of jailbreak equivalent of the App Store for iOS devices. It enables users to find and install open source packages as well as buy special modifications made for jailbroken phones—often with features not approved by Apple. Cydia creator Jay "saurik" Freeman has now announced that he is also building a version of Cydia for Mac OS X, called, appropriately enough, Mac Cydia. Cydia is generally installed either automatically or as a recommended first step after jailbreaking an iOS device. It was originally one of the first sources of installable packages for jailbreakers, including apps and command line tools, but later offered developers an way to sell software that would otherwise be impossible to distribute via Apple's official App Store. Freeman told Ars in 2008 that he named Cydia after the Latin name for a moth larva that thought of as "stereotypical apple worm." While it is common to think of Cydia as a jailbreak alterna...