A few minutes ago I decided to restore my iPad to default factory settings. Why? Because I’m tired of the current jailbreak scene.
The official Spirit jailbreak for iPad was released two months ago (on May 2nd, here’s our post about it) and it was welcomed as the ultimate jailbreaking tool for Apple’s latest device. Indeed, Spirit is a great tool: one click jailbreak, lightweight download and no need to follow tutorials. Thing is, this time my problem is with developers and Saurik, who hasn’t given us an update on Cydia for iPad for more than two months now.
When you open Cydia on the iPad you’re greeted with the same message you could see months ago: “everything is very buggy so feel free to try stuff at your own risk”, basically. Also, Cydia on the iPad is not optimized for the new device in any way: it’s a bigger version of the iPhone “app”, menus and tabs included. But what am I expecting, after all? “It’s illegal, you can’t pretend that much of support”.
That is the most important problem, I think: you’ll never get the same kind of support you get from App Store developers on Cydia. Say what you want, go on comment below and tell me I’m wrong (please do) but truth is that at the end of the day an alternative is what it is: an alternative. In the iPad case, a pretty bad one, too.
See, jailbreaking the iPad simply isn’t worth it. Developers haven’t released any app / tweak that will make you say “Wow, I need to jailbreak it right now”. Pro Switcher? Buggy as hell. Backgrounder? Same. Circuitous? Decent. Full-force? Boring after a few days. The only app I’m going to miss is iFile, and I have to say iFile’s developer is probably the only one that really focused on optimizing his app for the iPad since the beginning, even when he didn’t have one to test it on. I’m also going to cry over those unused Open SSH shortcuts, but still.
I don’t know why Cydia developers haven’t put their efforts in releasing apps for the iPad. Maybe they’re still thinking it’s a new device not worth the risk. Or maybe they just don’t know what to do - could it be a lack of creativity? I doubt it.
I’m beginning to think that the iPad doesn’t need anything but a Retina Display and iOS 4. Maybe the iPad doesn’t need Cydia, while the iPhone can immensely benefit from the tools available on it. It’s an interesting situation: it seems like the developers’ non-existent works showed us that our tablets are (almost) perfect as they are. Once again, we’ve realized how much the iPad is different from the iPhone.
Perhaps this post wouldn’t be here if devs struggled a little bit more and gave a meaning to Cydia for iPad. Or maybe I’d be here saying the same exact things. I don’t know, but right now I know that I’m done with jailbreak for iPad.
Saurik, you’re missing a huge opportunity.
Maybe.
