Looks like the Christmas wish of our own East Coast editor John Biggs just came true. Hackulous, the company behind the popular (and controversial) app Installous which let people easily download pirated apps on jailbroken iOS devices, has shut down. In what iDownloadBlog’s Sebastien Page has rightly called “a small victory against app piracy,” it appears that Installous is also no longer available in the iOS App Store. Hackulous announced the closure today in a brief post on its website that reads: “We are very sad to announce that Hackulous is shutting down. After many years, our community has become stagnant and our forums are a bit of a ghost town. It has become difficult to keep them online and well-moderated, despite the devotion of our staff. We’re incredibly thankful for the support we’ve had over the years and hope that new, greater communities blossom out of our absence. With lots of love, Hackulous Team” Fans of the Installous are mourning the loss on its Facebook page, and, not surprisingly, offering up links to other piracy apps that are still up and running. The timing here is interesting, as it comes just one day after John Biggs wrote a TechCrunch article calling Installous “the scam iOS maker of the day” and calling for Apple to shut down the Installous app, which he called “a travesty, and an insult to those who strive to build great apps.” He was under the impression that there were two Installous apps out there, but it seems now that they were both the same thing. It’s unclear whether Apple heeded his call or if Hackulous pulled the app on its own as part of its planned shutdown. Either way, now it’s totally gone. It’s certainly not the end of mobile app piracy, but it is one small step forward for developers who want to earn an honest living for building fun mobile applications, and for those of us users who are happy to pay the the dollar or two it takes to download an app the honest way.
TechCrunch