Jay Freeman, founder, Cydia

Jay Freeman is a PhD student at the University of California. But in between lectures and seminars he’s found time to take on the mighty Apple. Freeman is the developer of Cydia, an alternative application installer for the iPhone, allowing users to run the programs that Apple refuses to allow into its official App Store.

Freeman estimates that Cydia is deployed on over two million jail-broken iPhone devices.  When his own iPhone video recorder—Cycorder—was rejected from Apple’s App Store despite the fact that the older versions of the device do not support video recording, Freeman decided to step up his game.

The Cydia Store uses Amazon as the payment system and authenticates users via Facebook or Google. Freeman has also promised not to take more than the 30 per cent of revenues Apple does for applications distributed through the store. No matter how innovative a firm is—and Apple is at the top of the table—there is always somebody else ready to take the game a stage further. Apple may have showed users what can be done with the mobile internet. But Freeman has shown them what else can be done with the mobile internet; all by himself.

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