If you need a reason to jailbreak, Cydia's founder has a few

9to5 Staff | Apr 29 2011 - 7:59 am PT

It is estimated that one in ten iPhones out there are jailbroken. That is, their software is modified to run apps Apple doesn’t want you to know about. For the vast majority of remaining 90 percent, however, jailbreaking is a borderline underground thing and a big no-no. And who can blame them? Apple was vigilant about jailbreakers and it got a little help from AT&T, too, until federal regulators last summer declared jailbreaking legal. Still, many people didn’t get the memo.

That’s why Jay Freeman, also known as Saurik and the man who created Cydia, an unofficial app store for unsanctioned software, set out to educate those not in the known about the benefits of jailbreaking. Saurik sat down with Robert Scoble at the Mobile Connections conference who produced the above video. Would you free your phone from the clutches of curated App Store now that you’ve learned about the benefits of jailbreaking? Meet us in comments.

If you thought unofficial apps are far and few between, think again. Although it carries a lot of free apps like themes and user interface tweaks, the Cydia Store also sells apps, just like the App Store, minus the convenient billing system.

In fact, the Cydia Store is a big business that had raked in a quarter of million dollars in income as of July 2009. By now, the figure may have approached or surpassed the one million dollar mark. Recently a paid banner advertising the Toyota Scion theme made a lot of noise because it suggested that Cydia cut an advertising deal with the car maker.

Saurik rebuffed the rumor, explaining said banner was being served in the Cydia storefront via ModMyi, but that didn’t stop Apple from asking Toyota to take down the advert.