Apple should be stopped from creating an artificial barrier towards people selling apps to consumers without Apple's approval. There's no reason they couldn't separate the store APIs from the App Store itself, allowing the creation of third-party stores and direct sales. This would allow them to curate more, they way they do with the Mac App Store.

And for the record: Apple is merely the most obnoxious offender. I would happily apply to the same standard to Amazon, Nintendo, etc.

Go develop your app and sell it on the Cydia App Store.

It's possible and Apple is clearly allowing it to exist. That doesn't mean Apple has to make it easy for you to switch over to it or support it in any way.

Apple's triennial opposition to the jailbreaking DMCA exception makes it clear that they want jailbreaking (and Cydia with it) to be illegal. They kick companies do anything with Cydia out of their app store (IIRC, Toyota ran into this). They are harsh with jailbreaking and warranties and have released at least one update that bricked jailbroken phones, possibly intentionally. Apple's behavior doesn't say they're allowing Cydia to exist, it says there are limits to the tools they can use to shut it down.

Apple certainly did not "purposely" or even knowing release an update that bricked jailbroken devices: te incident you are referring to was caused by a baseband upgrade that relied on some things that had been screwed up by the popular unlock at the time (not even the jailbreak). The unlock was fixed (and subsequent unlocks have not taken similar risks) and Apple seriously scrambled to release a second upgrade that fixed those devices.)

(And yes: "scrambled" is the right word for their reaction; in addition to them having large numbers of sad customers, it is actually /illegal/ in many major countries to pull the shenanigans you seem to believe Apple had a part in, and a class-action lawsuit was immediately put together by people who refused to believe it was just a mistake.)

As for your assertion that they kick companies that do things with Cydia around, that is absurd: major applications like uStream and Qik have either been cross-listed in both markets or launched on jailbroken devices first; Tapululous even has been on stage with Jobs, and they are the reason many users jailbroke on iPhoneOS 1.x.

Meanwhile, Apple actually did /not/ file opposition to the DCMA exemption this year: in fact, at the hearings (which I attended and even answered a question at), it was specifically brought up how none of the players with actual skin in te game (such as Apple or manufacturers of Android devices) care enough to participate this year.

Finally, Apple certainly won't help you with software issues (or even certain classes of hardware issues) of you are currently jailbroken, but they could easily blacklist your warranty, and yet they simply don't: I have never heard of someone being denied service by Apple unless they both refuse to restore their device (to see if jailbreaking caused the problem).

So, while I don't actually agree with the person you are responding to (that Apple actively allows the process), your post is sufficiently full of lies and FUD that you are not adding anything useful to the conversation by having responded. :(

"Apple should be stopped from creating an artificial barrier towards people selling apps to consumers without Apple's approval. "

Here's how the free market really works:

(1) Apple makes a device at great capital investment and because of this

(2) Apple gets to decides how that device works, what it works with, which apps it can run, where users can get those from etc. Then

(3) consumers can assign whatever weight they want to the constraints Apple has built into the device and then they buy the device or not.

(4) developers can assign whatever weight they want to the ornerousness of the terms Apple has set vs the size of the potential market and then determine if they want to develop for that platform or not.

As it turns out in the case of iOS the devices have been very popular with users and developers. If Apple's terms were too ornerous and draconian we might expect that no one would be developing for iOS or no one would be buying the iphone.

This is again how the free market works.

"There's no reason they couldn't separate the store APIs from the App Store itself, allowing the creation of third-party stores and direct sales. "

There's also no reason they couldn't give all their money to sponsor poor children in developing countries.

There's reasons they shouldn't do either of these seemingly noble things though.

While this is how the free market works, ironically Apple have implemented the very opposite of the free market. Those who develop apps have also expended capital. If their app is suddenly yanked from the market then you can no longer claim that you are working in a perfect free market.

Incidentally, I disagree with you but I still had to think through my points. I am very surprised that you have been voted down. I upvoted you, I hope some other folks do too - your POV is actually quite germaine to this debate and I appreciate that you have expressed it!