What Were MiTube Devs THINKING?!

[Halten77]

I can't believe MxTube was finally updated for iOS4 after months of waiting and was Renamed as MiTube. But why the heck was it released in the Apple AppStore and got removed, instead of releasing it in Cydia or Rock?! My question is: Will MiTube be released in Cydia/Rock? I've searched and it's not there...

[z3r01]

Not yet but soon

[Halten77]

Thanks, Z3r01.

[cypherpunk]

They were thinking that maybe Apple weren't being so anal about their "duplicating functionality" bull****, and wouldn't be childish enough as to hold a grudge.
Unfortunately, they were wrong. Because let's not kid ourselves here - this was rejected because they found out it was a jailbreak app, and one that did a much better job than their crappy native app. There's other apps in the app store that have been around for a while and let you save videos and download files from pretty much anywhere ("Downloads" is even better than Safari Download Manager, IMO), the only difference is that none of them were blatant clones of jailbreak apps.

Anyway, you can still install it. The IPA is readily available and instructions are all over Google.

[mortopher]

They were thinking that maybe Apple weren't being so anal about their "duplicating functionality" bull****, and wouldn't be childish enough as to hold a grudge.
Unfortunately, they were wrong. Because let's not kid ourselves here - this was rejected because they found out it was a jailbreak app, and one that did a much better job than their crappy native app. There's other apps in the app store that have been around for a while and let you save videos and download files from pretty much anywhere ("Downloads" is even better than Safari Download Manager, IMO), the only difference is that none of them were blatant clones of jailbreak apps.

Anyway, you can still install it. The IPA is readily available and instructions are all over Google.

Pay attention before you mouth off like this again. Google, the owner of YouTube, took issue with this app and they're the key reason behind it being pulled. The dev had direct conversations with google about the legality of the app. Nice try though.

[BlueOrchard]

Let's Hope it will be released in the cydia store. im looking forward to buying it

[cypherpunk]

Pay attention before you mouth off like this again. Google, the owner of YouTube, took issue with this app and they're the key reason behind it being pulled. The dev had direct conversations with google about the legality of the app. Nice try though.

How about you stop being so condescending?

I don't see where anyone gets the idea that there are legal issues here. When you view a video on Youtube, it has to be downloaded somewhere for your PC or iPhone to be able to play it, usually your cache - it's even indicated on the website by the bar that fills up as the video loads and shows you what percentage of the video has been downloaded to your cache. All this app does is save it to a different local directory rather than the cache.

You say Google's to blame for this? Yet, somehow, Google didn't contact Cydia, despite them hosting exactly the same app? Or Mozilla? Or Microsoft? Or developers of extensions for their own browser?
All of them are doing basically the same thing, yet stangely enough none of those involve Apple, and it just happens that it's only the one case where it does involve Apple that anything seems to be a problem. Add to that the fact that Apple also has a history of removing stuff for all kinds of idiotic reasons, and I think people can make a fairly safe assumption about where the problem lies.

[Halten77]

Let's Hope it will be released in the cydia store. im looking forward to buying it

MxTube has always been a free app. MiTube was free in the AppStore. I doubt you're gonna have to pay for it in cydia.

[mortopher]

How about you stop being so condescending?

I don't see where anyone gets the idea that there are legal issues here. When you view a video on Youtube, it has to be downloaded somewhere for your PC or iPhone to be able to play it, usually your cache - it's even indicated on the website by the bar that fills up as the video loads and shows you what percentage of the video has been downloaded to your cache. All this app does is save it to a different local directory rather than the cache.

You say Google's to blame for this? Yet, somehow, Google didn't contact Cydia, despite them hosting exactly the same app? Or Mozilla? Or Microsoft? Or developers of extensions for their own browser?
All of them are doing basically the same thing, yet stangely enough none of those involve Apple, and it just happens that it's only the one case where it does involve Apple that anything seems to be a problem. Add to that the fact that Apple also has a history of removing stuff for all kinds of idiotic reasons, and I think people can make a fairly safe assumption about where the problem lies.

I'll believe what the dev says about it himself. He's had direct contact with Google about the legality of it. Also, in case you have not noticed, Google has a bit more aggression towards Apple than the other companies you mentioned.

[cypherpunk]

I'll believe what the dev says about it himself. He's had direct contact with Google about the legality of it. Also, in case you have not noticed, Google has a bit more aggression towards Apple than the other companies you mentioned.

That's true. My understanding was that he was the one who contacted Google after Apple pulled the app, after first trying to contact Apple but getting no reply.

Whatever the finer details might be, I suspect the issue centers more around Apple's (un)willingness to distribute this software and/or Google's (un)willingness to have Apple distribute anything related to its services than any issues with the app being legal or not (which it indisputably is), since no one ever raised any concerns when it was in Cydia.

[mortopher]

I'm still lost on how you view it as being "indisputably" legal. It's no different than if you had an app/extension to save any netflix or hulu video that you watch and that's completely illegal. It's a lot easier to go after a big company such as apple that has it in their actual store (albeit online) than it is to go after Cydia, which for all intents and purposes is not regulatable (you can always put anything up in your own repo if nobody else will host it).

[bobright]

Legal issues aside it's obvious this app would not fly in the App store for long. I agree he should have released on cydia, and even charged a buck or two. Its nice and sleek I would have bought it.

[mortopher]

Charging for it would certainly raise legal issues regardless of where it was sold.

[bobright]

Charging for his work say a buck I doubt it..

[cypherpunk]

I'm still lost on how you view it as being "indisputably" legal.

Read what I wrote earlier. Whenever you view a youtube video, it's downloaded to your browser cache. You're not creating an additional copy, as you would if you were recording say, Netflix, you're just choosing to save the copy you already have to a different directory instead of your browser cache.

Even in cases where saving a stream would create an additional copy (not the case with Youtube), it's not necessarily illegal. Recording a netflix stream definitely would be illegal, since you'd be basically copying a rental movie. Recording Hulu however, would NOT be illegal, for the same reason that recording a cable TV show using a DVR is not illegal.

It's a lot easier to go after a big company such as apple that has it in their actual store (albeit online) than it is to go after Cydia, which for all intents and purposes is not regulatable (you can always put anything up in your own repo if nobody else will host it).

What about Mozilla, who's been hosting scripts that do the same thing for years?

[mortopher]

Fine, it's explicitly against YouTube's ToS. Better? Depending on how that downloaded content is used would determine whether or not the additional legality claim would come into play.

As far as the mozilla thing is concerned... Like I said before, Google and Apple aren't the best of friends these days. Also, the mozilla addons is hardly regulated at all whereas the AppStore is strictly regulated by Apple.

[cypherpunk]

Just because something breaches your TOS doesn't give you the right to issue a takedown notice. Also, if you read what I wrote, this app doesn't breach Youtube's TOS any more than viewing a video in a web browser does. In fact I'd say it implicitly allows it - their TOS effectively states that you're not allowed to download a video unless it's made possible through their interface, and like I said simply clicking the "play" button on any video downloads the video to your cache, i.e. it is indeed made possible through their interface.


But yes, I definitely agree this all probably comes down to disputes between Apple and Google. I'd forgotten about that issue when I made my first post, and stand corrected.

[JustOne!]

what's the directory to mxtube? Can I see the installed backup videos manually on mxtube?