Although what you say is true. Developers (like me) spend a year working on an application, try to make some money (in my case to fund college) and just watch their app get stolen.

I think a lot of people underestimate how much work it takes to write an application. How long do you think it took me to put an option for uploading to Flickr in my yet-to-be-released app? 30 minutes? 45 minutes? An hour? Wrong—it took me 4 days.

This article is what I’m talking about: http://vibealicious.com/blog/development/software-takes-time-and-money-to-develop/

On topic: Personally, I’m not sure if this will have as great an impact as it might appear possible to. While this will make cracked applications available outside of the jailbreak community, people would still need to seek them out, and I believe that the average consumer is simply too lazy to do so. When it comes to PC software, the prices tend to be higher, and seeing as you’re already sitting at your computer, a simple search on sites like PirateBay may be cheaper and easier than purchasing. The advantage that I believe the AppStore has is it’s simplicity, it’s on-the-go access, and it’s average price point. Perhaps more expensive apps will find themselves pirated more, but overall, I think that if there is an impact, it will be minimal.

You seem to have a habit of “reading between the lines” as in #4 and your reply (#6) to my comment that is patently crude. First of all, kindly grant us that we are honest and ethical folks here. As such, there is nothing wrong about reporting dishonest facts, unethical deeds, etc. and discussing their implications, even among honest and ethical folks. The main theme of the blog entry is to touch upon the “potential implications it has for the future of Apple’s App Store.” In my comment I made clear my dislike of the present situation, I noted that it is not sustainable and presented what I think will be the likely outcome. I made no value judgement on whether the road that leads us from A to B is the optimal route.
The only value judgement I made is that any B is far better than A. Yet, I stand accused by you of being unethical, idiotic and not knowing what I’m talking about.

That being said, whatever can be done, will be done. That’s a general rule for mankind. So now there is a way to steal iPhone apps – like there is a way to practically steal any other kind of real or virtual goods. It’s up to every individual to make a decission if he is going down that road or not.

Information will hopefully help individuals to come to a reasonable decission. Blaming the messenger of potentially bad news certainly doesn’t help anybody.

Cracking platforms like the DS and the PSP has been really popular but also part of their downfall. Now there’s not a single serious developer left who wants to build good DS or PSP games because they will be cracked the day they’re released!

You are actually trying to argue that because you find it hard to find good apps at the app store that wholesale theft of any and all apps is okay? This is not only unethical, it’s idiotic. You simply don’t know what you are talking about.