“We have no doubt that this will be a long journey playing ‘cat and mouse’ with Apple, who probably won’t like us breaking their closed ecosystem,” he said. It’s not clear what Apple may do to knock this slow-moving train off track, given the war of attrition the company has had with the jailbreaking community for years. “Last time we checked, pirates didn’t need Popcorn Time in order to share content online, but they do need torrent websites to do so.” “We always felt how unjust it was, and when Popcorn Time approached us, we felt that this was the wake up call we were waiting for.” “We’ve seen awesome startups close and people losing their jobs, solely because the app they created didn’t align with whatever ‘master plan’ Apple’s had, and so their app was denied access to the App Store,” the developer said. iOS Installer’s motivation seems to be a cross between Robin Hood and V for Vendetta, by the way the group talks about tackling what it perceives as an “unjust” system of governance by Apple. It will inevitably become a cat-and-mouse game with Apple, which has always frowned on anyone not playing by its strict app rules. In other words, this grassroots movement to sideload apps onto non-jailbroken iOS devices could open the floodgates to an underground marketplace for app developers and consumers. “This project with Popcorn Time would be our pilot and, if successful, then the sky is the limit.” “We always felt Apple’s totalitarian approach to their ecosystem was wrong - how they choose for their users what they can and cannot install on the devices they purchased and paid top dollar for,” an iOS Installer developer told Digital Trends, preferring to remain anonymous. It’s essentially a testing ground to bypass Apple’s rigid protocols for app availability and installation on non-jailbroken iOS devices. Popcorn’s iOS app hails from a group calling itself “ iOS Installer,” which collaborated with Popcorn Time members. Its creators want to openly challenge Hollywood studios, Netflix, HBO, Hulu, and other streaming platforms to democratize content further, given that “people will risk fines, lawsuits, and whatever consequences that may come just to be able to watch a recent movie in slippers.” But while it opens up a vast breadth of pirated content, the real mission of the Popcorn Time app may be circumventing Apple’s control over what apps can and cannot be installed on an iPhone or iPad through its App Store. At the time, that groups claimed that the service was “legal” after checking the laws “four times.” Maybe they should have checked the law a fifth time.īecause Popcorn Time was open-source, it found new life in the current versions or “forks” available for computers and mobile devices. Yet, unlike Netflix and other streaming providers who pay for the rights to the content they offer, Popcorn Time doesn’t pay a dime for all the movies and TV shows on its app.īelieve it or not, the people behind the new app are even more defiant than the Argentine developers that created the original Popcorn Time website, which was forced to shut down in March 2014. It’s a pirating service designed to make downloading illegal torrents of popular movies and TV shows as easy as watching Netflix. The legal argument for Popcorn Time’s video-streaming app is essentially nonexistent. “We always felt Apple’s totalitarian approach to their ecosystem was wrong.”
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