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sOwL

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Sep 25, 2007
490
6
Nerd Cave
I've googled alot about it, i don't really care because i have it disabled on my device, but i was jsut curious because i never found a clear answer. Let's say there's app "A" in the appstore, and few people download it on their devices. After few days, apple decides to pull it off appstore, so none can legally get it from there. Will kill switch remove it from the devices that have it installed? And if thats the case, is there any refund policy for paid apps that have been removed that way?
 
As far as I know Apple has never removed an app from someones device. If an app is removed from the store it will stay on devices until the user deletes it themselves.

I honestly don't know why people are so afraid, the terrible PR that they would receive for deleting apps on someones phone would not be worth it to them.
 
True, and as i said im not worried, because i disabled it anyway. I was just curious, because indeed it sounds so wrong off apple to do such a thing... Thanx for the quick reply, that cleared up things, i might even enable it again coz it could actually help if any malicious app ever finds its way into my itouch :p
 
True, and as i said im not worried, because i disabled it anyway. I was just curious, because indeed it sounds so wrong off apple to do such a thing... Thanx for the quick reply, that cleared up things, i might even enable it again coz it could actually help if any malicious app ever finds its way into my itouch :p

Disabled what? I've never even heard of what you're talking about.
 
True, and as i said im not worried, because i disabled it anyway. I was just curious, because indeed it sounds so wrong off apple to do such a thing... Thanx for the quick reply, that cleared up things, i might even enable it again coz it could actually help if any malicious app ever finds its way into my itouch :p

:confused::confused:
How did you disable it? I really doubt that's possible, unless of course you're jailbroken. Even in the case of jailbroken phones I've never heard of a way to disable the kill switch.
 
Disabled what? I've never even heard of what you're talking about.

There is a function of the iPhone that lets apple remotely remove applications from a device. Much like Amazon did with 1984 and the Kindle.

As stated, this causes awful press and is not likely, but if you jailbreak your phone you can disable this killswitch. If you are so inclined (read paranoid ;))

:confused::confused:
How did you disable it? I really doubt that's possible, unless of course you're jailbroken. Even in the case of jailbroken phones I've never heard of a way to disable the kill switch.

Jailbreak > Install SBSettings > Open SBSettings > touch More > touch Extras & Options > Disable Apple Killswitch. :D
 
I believe Apple would only remove an application if one made it through the review process, placed in iTunes, and was later found to have malicious code in it. Such an application could compromise your personal data or cause severe malfunction. If Apple realizes this before you, they'll be doing you a favor by deleting it.
 
would it be possible for apple at somepoint to use the killswitch to identify jailbroken phones and delete things like cydia / icy?
 
I believe Apple would only remove an application if one made it through the review process, placed in iTunes, and was later found to have malicious code in it. Such an application could compromise your personal data or cause severe malfunction. If Apple realizes this before you, they'll be doing you a favor by deleting it.

Fair enough, i'm not talking about malicious software here though, i'm talking about apps that made it to the appstore and then removed because later apple decided that they violate its terms. And eye.surgeon, i'm not worried, i was just curious...
 
Yes, there is a killswitch.

There is one but Apple has yet to use it. You can disable it but only if you have jailbroken. Here is a screenshot so you can see it can be disabled:
 

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I feel like this was done for the Devicescape App. Sure it remained on my computer but it appeared in updating Apps without a button to update. It kept causing errors so I deleted it. It had become redundant after 3.0's improved WiFi handling.
 
to my knowledge apple has never used the kill switch. kill switches are measures of last resort (android has one too, controlled by google) to nuke a program that is doing seriously bad things.

say an app gets through apple's review and has a delayed function that begins to send all your contacts, notes, email and location to a botnet. the botnet collects millions of user's data and begins to sell it, starts to use advertising analytics to match up info with computer browsers, matches data downloaded from viruses for more info and begins trying to log into your online banking to wipe out your funds.

now in this situation, what would you, as the person who let this get onto 50+ million people's phones want to do?
 
Only an idiot would disable Apple's kill switch. They've never used it despite several apps that were not to their liking including apps like NetShare. Obviously Apple would only use it on truly malicious apps that somehow make their way into the App Store.
 
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