Comex on his new Apple gig and how much he made on the jailbreak scene

We told you last week that Nicholas Allegra (better known as Comex), founder of JailbreakMe and popular member of the jailbreaking community, would be joining Apple for an internship this week. This left many wondering whether or not he would still be contributing to future exploits.

The answer? No. He has, however, done a quick Q&A (below) to answer some of our questions and give us insight into his views on Apple and jailbreaking.

Not only will he not contribute to future jailbreaks, it looks like he won’t be sticking around at Apple long either, as he notes plans to return to college will prevent him from taking up a permanent role. Also factoring into that decision is the fact he’s “never had a job before”, which may be because he’s received over $55,000 in donations from his jailbreaking efforts. He also thinks Apple will continue to “beat the pants off its competitors”. 

When asked about Apple stealing ideas from jailbroken apps and tweaks, Comex explains:

I certainly don’t mind. Jailbreak community puts an idea in front of people with a crappy implementation; Apple polishes it to the point where it can be an OS feature. I don’t know whether Apple actually pays attention to jailbreak apps, but see App Store, copy and paste, multitasking, etc…

Below are excerpts from the Q&A with Comex on Reddit (via TechCrunch): 

Why an intern position though? It seems like you could carry a regular position at apple. (AstroZombie138)

Comex: I don’t know if I’d want to do that- I’ve never had a job before and I don’t know what it’s like- and I intend to go back to college soon.

Have you made any money from the [jailbreak] scene? (jamesvdm)

Comex: I’ve made a good amount of money through donations, which is mostly being used to help pay for college. JailbreakMe 2.0 was like $40,000; 3.0 was $15,000 (not quite sure why it decreased).

Are you optimistic about the future of the iOS platform? What features are you looking forward to next? (iconoclaus)

Comex: My personal opinion: it will probably continue to beat the pants off its competitors in performance for a while yet, and Apple’s “take your time but do it right” policy on features will probably continue to make it a pleasure to use. But I’m impatient: other platforms (WebOS) have a lot of fun stuff with no real equivalent in iOS.

After your internship with Apple and after iOS 5 is officially released, will you continue to support the jailbreak community by providing exploits? (nishnasty)

Comex: No. (But I’ll want to jailbreak my phone, so I hope someone finds them :p)