Of course the jailbreakers threw together a dev environment quickly. They didn't have to make a business decision to do so. They didn't need a budget or a strat

Of course the jailbreakers threw together a dev environment quickly. They didn't have to make a business decision to do so. They didn't need a budget or a strategic plan. They didn't need buy-in from anyone. They didn't have to have their decisions vetted by a management team and a legal team. They almost certainly didn't do any usability testing or write a set of human interface guidelines. They didn't have to make design decisions that they could live with for the next five years, or (as with the decisions made by the designers of the original Mac OS) twenty-five years. They didn't need to make an official announcement, or run a beta program lasting several months so that developers had a chance to have apps ready on launch day. They didn't have to invest in developer training materials or write formal documentation. They didn't have to build an entire app store that was secure, cross-platform, usable by customers, relatively free of bugs, and ready to scale so that it would handle one million users in its first weekend. And, when the jailbreak apps break, the developers don't get hammered by guys like Walt Mossberg, David Pogue, and every analyst and pundit on Wall Street. When end users complain that their phone battery life is too short, the jailbreakers don't need to respond. They aren't obligated to fix security holes or support developers who have problems. They aren't obligated to support anyone. They're open-source hackers, they can't get fired, and they always have the option to say caveat emptor and go do something else. There's a reason why people pay for Apple's stuff. Apple adds value. But adding value takes time and money.