14 DAY TRIAL // After posting a picture of a jailbroken iPhone 4 on his blog, George Hotz, also known as geohot, announced his retirement from iDevices hacking, saying that it was not fun as it used to be. According to Hotz, who is famous for his Blackra1n jailbreak tool, people were taking too serious something he used to do just as a distraction when he was bored.
Some may now regard geohot’s latest blog post as clear evidence that the famous hacker had already gotten bored of the never ending cat-and-mouse game.
“Got one of these in the mail today and figured I'd give it a shot,” Geohot wrote on July 10. “As far as a release goes, it probably won't happen from me. limera1n is little more than a raindrop on a website; it was never mentioned by me previous to this post. pwned4life is a complete invention of some blogger in a basement somewhere. When I said pwned for life, I was referring to the original iPhone, 3G, and Touch; which of course are, by the aptly named PwnageTool.” Hotz then urged jailbreak fans to stay put and “don't ask for release dates”. He claimed that, “Every person that does makes me want to release a little bit less.”
Likely pressured by his own faithful fans in the three days to follow, Hotz made his blog available for privately-invited readers only on July 13. He also locked down his Twitter account, which only a few select individuals could follow starting that day. The hacker had been visibly unsatisfied for some time with the feedback he was getting from the jailbreak community. His final step was to officially announce his retirement. He did so, via a few tweets (reproduced below, courtesy of tech-exclusive.com)
- i was just having fun but some people had to take this all way too seriously. it’s just a phone, and it isn’t much fun anymore.
- my bio isn’t “iPhone hacker” it was just something i did occasionally when i was bored. seriously, i think many of you care way more than me
- it was a cool ride, and i’ve learned a lot about a lot. perhaps one of these days i’ll do a more formal goodbye.
Although Softpedia does not encourage jailbreaking, the news certainly are of great interest to many of our readers. Those who will miss geohot are encouraged to write a few lines in the comments. Perhaps Hotz will one day stumble across this report and give his decision a second thought.