Apple has pressured Toyota to remove a custom theme for jailbroken iPhones advertising the Scion car.
Available through Cydia, the interface theme was perhaps a sign that jailbreaking was gaining mainstream acceptance.
However, Cydia was contacted on Monday night and asked to remove the interface theme. According to Toyota’s advertising agency, Velti, Apple contacted Toyota and asked for the theme to be pulled.
Toyota complied to “maintain their good relationship with Apple,” according to a spokesperson for Velti speaking to ModMyi.com.
Apparently the controversial theme had been available since February 10th, but flew under Apple’s radar until Toyota started advertising it on sites like ModMyi.com at the the end of March and it got some press.
Jailbreaking is not illegal, but Apple says its voids warranties.
Leander Kahney is the editor and publisher of Cult of Mac.
Leander is a longtime technology reporter and the author of six acclaimed books about Apple, including two New York Times bestsellers: Jony Ive: The Genius Behind Apple’s Greatest Products and Inside Steve’s Brain, a biography of Steve Jobs.
He’s also written a top-selling biography of Apple CEO Tim Cook and authored Cult of Mac and Cult of iPod, which both won prestigious design awards. Most recently, he was co-author of Cult of Mac, 2nd Edition.
Leander has been reporting about Apple and technology for nearly 30 years.
Before founding Cult of Mac as an independent publication, Leander was news editor at Wired.com, where he was responsible for the day-to-day running of the Wired.com website. He headed up a team of six section editors, a dozen reporters and a large pool of freelancers. Together the team produced a daily digest of stories about the impact of science and technology, and won several awards, including several Webby Awards, 2X Knight-Batten Awards for Innovation in Journalism and the 2010 MIN (Magazine Industry Newsletter) award for best blog, among others.
Before being promoted to news editor, Leander was Wired.com’s senior reporter, primarily covering Apple. During that time, Leander published a ton of scoops, including the first in-depth report about the development of the iPod. Leander attended almost every keynote speech and special product launch presented by Steve Jobs, including the historic launches of the iPhone and iPad. He also reported from almost every Macworld Expo in the late ’90s and early ‘2000s, including, sadly, the last shows in Boston, San Francisco and Tokyo. His reporting for Wired.com formed the basis of the first Cult of Mac book, and subsequently this website.
Before joining Wired, Leander was a senior reporter at the legendary MacWeek, the storied and long-running weekly that documented Apple and its community in the 1980s and ’90s.
Leander has written for Wired magazine (including the Issue 16.04 cover story about Steve Jobs’ leadership at Apple, entitled Evil/Genius), Scientific American, The Guardian, The Observer, The San Francisco Chronicle and many other publications.
Leander has a postgrad diploma in artificial intelligence from the University of Aberdeen, and a BSc (Hons) in experimental psychology from the University of Sussex.
He has a diploma in journalism from the UK’s National Council for the Training of Journalists.
Leander lives in San Francisco, California, and is married with four children. He’s an avid biker and has ridden in many long-distance bike events, including California’s legendary Death Ride.
You can find out more about Leander on LinkedIn and Facebook. You can follow him on X at @lkahney or Instagram.
8 responses to “Apple Pressures Toyota To Remove Jailbreak Ad”
It’s not hard to restore an iPhone. I’ve sent in numerous iPhones that has been jailbroken and never ran into a problem.
No offence but this headline is a little out of line. The article is titled, and supposed to be descriptive of Apple “pressuring” Toyota, but you have no evidence of that and don’t present any evidence in your article.
Everyone else is reporting that Toyota was asked nicely, but you go with “pressured”?
Hmmmm.
typical hit fodder tactic.
That said, I wouldn’t be shocked if they were contacted by Apple and told so long as they have the theme available they will not be approved for any legit apps or any iAds. Any any existing items will be pulled immediately (after say 48 hours to decide and act)
And it makes sense. While the DMCA does currently allow jailbreaking, it doesn’t require Apple to support it or do business with those that support it. So they won’t.
Apple, oh Apple. What will they think of next?