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Hackulous iOS app community closes

Jailbreakers and users of cracked iOS apps have one less thing to be happy about this New Year's Eve. Hackulous, the cracked app community for iOS, shut down as of yesterday.

Along with Hackulous, Apptrackr -- which was a web-based index of cracked apps -- and Installous -- an app that was used to transfer cracked apps to iOS devices -- also shut down. The Hackulous team announced the shutdown in a statement: "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."

Many in the jailbreak and cracked app community are not buying the story, noting that Hackulous still had many users. The Installous app was allegedly generating a lot of revenue for the team, as ads were served to users every time they performed an app-related action in the software.

TorrentFreak attempted to contact Dissident, the admin of the Hackulous projects, for a statement, but he appears to be lying low. In the past, Dissident often preached about the need for users to be able to try out apps before buying them. Since trial apps are now more available, TorrentFreak speculates that Dissident may have felt the Hackulous "mission was over".

Another possible reason for the closure could just be that there's no iOS 6 jailbreak coming soon. No jailbreak means that Installous and even the legal Cydia "alternative app store" will not function on new iOS devices. Whatever the reason behind the closing of Hackulous, it's certainly a blow for the jailbreak community.

[via The Verge]