Apple to Toyota - Take Down that Theme

[Kyle Matthews]

A couple days ago I wrote an article discussing Toyota's Scion theme they'd published in Cydia through Velti, an advertising agency they use. I was impressed at a major corporation recognizing the niche jailbreak market and pouring some attention into it. The idea brought some interesting possibilities, and the article got some legs, including a mention on Daring Fireball this morning.

Apple also heard about the theme and ad campaign. I received a call from our contact at Velti this evening as well as an email asking me to please take the theme out of Cydia. On the phone, he explained Apple had contacted Toyota and requested they remove the theme and stop the advertising campaign. They (Velti) in turn contacted me relaying the message. The reason Velti listed for the removal request of the theme emailed through our dev portal was "Toyota’s making us take it down…" Toyota had agreed to do so to "maintain their good relationship with Apple," our Velti contact told me on the phone.

We first began talking with Velti the end of April last year, and the theme went live February 10th of this year - so Toyota had been thinking about this a while. In the end of March, 2011 we started their ad campaign on ModMyi.com depiction pages within Cydia pointing to the theme.

There's been a lot of mentions in the media throughout the jailbreak years of the cat and mouse game Apple and the jailbreak dev team are supposedly involved in. This is a very direct message, which is not without precedence (remember when they declared jailbreaking illegal?), but was unexpected. Especially after jailbreaking was officially declared legal, it's interesting Apple maintains such a heavy stance against a niche who obviously loves their hardware so much.

UPDATE 04/06/11: Apparently Toyota PR told the folks at Gawker (Jalopnik, specifically) Apple never called them, their campaign ended when March did, and it was an "interesting experiment that extended advertising to reach a new, unique audience." Which is strange, since I have a full volley of emails from Velti saying Toyota would like to extend the campaign (and a check from Velti to pay for the extension). Then a sudden phone call and email from Velti saying we'll have to cancel the campaign - and remove the theme as well - because Toyota got a call from Apple.

[[email protected]]

And one big step in reverse for the jailbreak community......

[Mrteacup]

Haha this is all very funny

[[email protected]]

interesting how apple lets some things slide and let down their guard but turn around and go out of their way to prove a point. so make up ur mind apple, if you REALLY wanted it down i think they could do away with it all together, someone somewhere in that company has a j/b phone and doesn't want it to go away

[toyvan]

Booooooooooooooooooooo! Hisssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss!

[Eagleye]

This is ridiculous... looks like even Toyota is Apple's b!tch.

[that_girl]

Boo! Screw you, Apple! *boycotts*

[skeels]

"Please Toyota, stop reaching out to your audience and advertising, especially in ways users love - it's a horrible thing to do"
- Signed whom?

For the record - awesome job (before complying) both to Toyota and Velti - and to ModMyi for all their efforts. It's a shame when "others" feel threatened by alternative methods to reach users. I think the biggest fear of Toyota using this avenue is that, to the general public, it's just so clear no one is harmed, and there's simply no logical/real argument against it. If that got out, it would be *awful* if people heard that jailbreaking was so useful/successful to users/businesses.

</sarcasm>

[delusion950]

Apple indeed is spending time on modmyi forum and checking out what we as a comminity will say or do so they can use it against us in their pointless updates.

[iCR4C]

Lol oh wow at apple


Sent from my iPhone using ModMyi

[exNavy]

Pathetic, shame on you Toyota!

"Relationship with Apple". What relationship? You offer 1/8" input jacks for mp3 players in your car and this constitutes a relationship? Chicken@#$%@#

[kevmac1219]

its all about money. Apple doesn't want toyota to give all that advertising money to the jailbreaking community.

[CZroe]

I don't see where the source says that Apple told them. It could very well be that they are collaborating with Apple on their system designed to compete with Ford Sync and this is a case of the left hand finally realizing what the right hand is doing and putting a stop to it BEFORE it strains relations with Apple. Unlike the title of this article implies, Apple probably didn't say a thing.

[skeels]

CZroe: Did you see in the article about Apple contacting Toyota and requesting they have it taken down? (Granted, heresay)

[glassJAw]

Where's your backbone Toyota?

[Nickaroni22]

Lame!!!

[CCoops11]

Sorry but this is just sad....

[EskimoRuler]

yea this really sucks, was hopefully looking forward to more of these themes from other companies

[Cer0]

Well that sucks. A company can't do their advertising the way they want without a different company getting upset at how they are advertising. Even when the way is completely legal.

But then again Toyota can't really say no to a tech giant like Apple.

[mortopher]

While the theme didn't appeal to me, I was certainly happy to see a part of the mainstream world come into Cydia and add a bit of legitimacy to what we do. Que sera...