Yesterday, we told you about Tapbots’ entertaining way it deals with folks who pirate its popular Tweetbot app. If you download the Twitter client without paying for it, it will auto-insert an embarrassing phrase into its Tweet sheet.
But the guys on the Tapbots team aren’t the only ones having fun with pirates. Jake Marsh, creator of the new Conditions weather app, also takes a creative approach in dealing with people who steal his work. Check it out…
Conditions, for those of you who aren’t familiar with it, is a minimalist weather app for the iPhone released earlier this month. Where most weather applications looked cluttered, with too many details, it offers a more simple UI.
I’m not sure how many apps you need to tell you the weather, but for those looking for an alternative to the stock one, it’s a solid choice. Its flat text and graphics look great, and the data it provides is straight-forward and accurate.
That is, unless you download it illegally. Then it actually becomes quite inaccurate, displaying a picture of a pirate head and a weather forecast of ‘ARRmageddon & 666 degrees’ with daily fire and brimstone showers. Every day.
If you’ve been reading iDB for a while, you know how strongly we feel about piracy. Besides the fact that it takes money from our good friends who work hard on apps and tweaks, it also—by association—gives jailbreaking a bad name.
That’s why we’re really liking this new trend with developers, of putting in special code to recognize pirates. It’s both entertaining, and in Marsh’s case, somewhat effective, since it would essentially make the app useless (right?).
What are your thoughts about it?