Since my personal iPhone is in restore mode right now I want to make sure everybody knows how to avoid all third party applications crashing after startup.
I had two situations so far where I had to fully restore my iPhone because no third party application (from the famous “App Store”) would work anymore. All default applications and all applications from Cydia or Installer would still work – but every “App Store” application would crash back to SpringBoard after loading and your bought music & films would not play.
Apple does not tell us whats the deal but I am quite sure about this: Its a copy protection for DRM protected music and applications. And it does not work correctly. Steve, shame on you!
I found a solution for the crashing applications: I patched the MobileInstaller framework in the System directory. Then I was able to delete and re-install applications from the local iPhone “App Store” and they would run again. But I will not post this workaround since your bought films and music will still not be playable. And Apple would send me love letters from their legal department.
So how to avoid this in general:
(1) DO NOT INSTALL APPLICATIONS FROM 2 USER ACCOUNTS. Even if the two accounts are yours and your computer is activated via iTunes for both accounts, every single new installation could render all your 3rd party apps useless! Even worse: You will notice this sometimes only after a reboot. Everything works fine and then you reboot your phone days later and wonder why you cannot start any of your bought applications. for some reason Apple considers this a DRM violation and shuts all your “App Store” apps down, no mery.
(2) DO NOT UPDATE APPLICATIONS USING THE LOCAL iPHONE APP STORE APPLICATION. This gave me my second experience with Apples great DRM protection. Yes, only one account. All applications legally bought. Just by updating a rather small application – and restarting afterwards – I left my device “broken by DRM”.
(3) To be on the safer side I would recommend not to install any applications via the local iPhone “App Store” application. I cannot confirm on this. But as long as you use only one acconut and install all applications via iTunes you should not get any further problems.
