Geohot Shuts Down His iPhone Blog, Twitter Account [Update]

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Posted July 13, 2010 at 2:41am by Shalom Levytam

Geohot has shut down the iPhone blog he used to announce and release jailbreaks over the past few years.

Visiting the site now says, "This blog is open to invited readers only".

This comes after his recent announcement of achieving a jailbreak for the iPhone 4 without plans for public release was met with a lot of negativity.

His last update to the blog read:

Sorry, this post was probably a bad idea. Next time I won’t say anything. I miss when this blog was actually about technical things(I’ve been reacting too much to the feedback, which led it to the place it’s in now). I didn’t fully realize most of the current scene don’t care unless they are getting something. Now I do. It’s late tonight, I’ll think about what to do about this in the morning.

The real reason behind no release isn’t technical. It’s just that it will never stop, after blackra1n, people demand unlock, after blacksn0w, people demand untethered. I miss the days when jailbreaking and unlocking were difficult, it attracted a much higher caliber crowd.

Also, to the haters, the picture is quite obviously fake :D

Update:
Geohot has also now shut down his Twitter account which has 113,761 followers. Visiting the account now says, "This person has protected their tweets" and no past tweets are viewable to the public.

Here are his last messages:

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.

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Geohot Shuts Down His iPhone Blog, Twitter Account [Update]

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Matt - July 13, 2010 at 4:44pm

Oh well...hell be back

MuscleNerd_ - July 13, 2010 at 4:23pm

I always knew the was a chicken, we shall soon hear from him again, he can't live without attention.

islandboy - July 13, 2010 at 5:28pm

Thank you, glad someone else sees it the same way! Thank God for you guys!

ELiAS - July 13, 2010 at 4:13pm

your the best no one like you am very sad to ur quite to mach people don't have a mind for what did you do ... what's mean when you unlock it and thank to you hope i see something from you =)

Jay - July 13, 2010 at 1:10pm

While i appreciated GH's work greatly, id say this is kind of childish. But hey, its perogative. His software was good but not great as the blacksn0w failed for me as well as others. There are more efficient ways than using GH's stuff. To retaliate bk, GH should have released the JB and charged $20 or more. He can make money off the haters. If people want it, they'd pay it. He could laugh right bk as we knownthere are PLENTy of people who want this iPhone JB'd.

D. - July 13, 2010 at 12:21pm

You'd think so right? But this is a gang of pirates and software thieves he'd be trying to sell to. He might make a dollar, but as soon as someone had their hands on the software- they'd just make a mirror of it, and it'd be circulated in places like The Pirate Bay/Rapidshare/Megaupload, etc. His old strategy of give freely and accept donations was the only viable way to make money honestly. No one's going to donate if you're selling the software, however if it's free they may very well donate $5 instead of buying for $1, or downloading elsewhere for free.

BtheG - July 13, 2010 at 1:05pm

He'd actually make a million probably easy ! Bet. But there's resins why it's not for sale & donations are excepted instead.

Zetroi - July 13, 2010 at 11:14am

"Retire, relax, enjoy your family. It is just a phone. Not worth it.". This is what I recently read. It was from Steve Jobs.

Rodrigo - July 13, 2010 at 11:27am

Not by Steve. Was a mistake. Who said that is the person who said that received the mails. But we don't even know if Steve Jobs wrote those emails, since other two sites said that the public relations department of Apple said that Steve didn't wrote that.

Confucious - July 13, 2010 at 11:00am

Language my brother! While I agree with everything you said I try not to swear. There is no need to lower ourselves to the levels of the haters. It is a sad day for the iPhone community if he doesn't come back - and who could blame him? Sop much hate and so little gratitutde :(

iyas - July 13, 2010 at 10:33am

i dont blame him for what he did to his blog or twitter..because 90 percent of the followers on his blog or twitter account were demanding and asking for too much from this guy..he helped out everyone with the 31.2 jailbreak and saved us stress..you guys should thank him for what he did and what hes trying to do also..he is helpng us out he is wasting his own time so we can have a better life with an unlocked iphone.

lorvar - July 13, 2010 at 7:49am

Actually, that is a picture of him and there's a ton of video interviews of him on the net. Google is your friend. Geohot provided his knowledge. You beg, you get a slap into reality. He doesn't owe anyone anything. Lesson learned.

vdesai - July 13, 2010 at 8:47am

that is his real picture. he was 17 when he unlocked the first gen iphone

B - July 13, 2010 at 7:27am

Not being funny as greatful as we are to him for his work, dont come out and say iv unlocked the iphone 4 and then not release because with the world how it is today everyone wants something for nothing i donated to Geo and now i hope he enjoys doing other things. Good Luck

paul - July 13, 2010 at 6:34am

There are many reasons why he could have shut this down. He might be moving on to other interests or simply focusing on his personal life. One consideration is that the iPhone 4 hardware issues, like the antenna design, might make unlocking less of a priority now. Ultimately, there will always be someone else in the community to share tools when they are ready. We should appreciate the work that has been done.

Black_Hawk - July 13, 2010 at 9:05am

Dude its not that we are begging anything however why disrespect the talented youngster like that. we dont scare away talent we nourish them. let the youth do his stuff and encourage him to do more.

Wester - July 13, 2010 at 4:55am

Now you see the consequense of all you that are always asking on ETA's and release dates. Be nice and sit tight and wait. They're doing this for free so stop demanding things.

myners - July 13, 2010 at 4:28am

He is one of the brianiac guy in Iphone world but some people just jealous and demanding without thanking him. Are you one of them?

joske - July 13, 2010 at 3:19am

See, Somebody is giving something to the community and suddenly a lot of people "depend" on it and start demanding things. I can only imagine the stress put on Geohot. I respect his choice. Everybody who paid him €20 per jailbreak has the right to be mad and pissed.

Kev - July 13, 2010 at 3:12am

Who needs this anyway .. there are (*and will be) other options to jailbreak as long as you follow the instructions carefully

JT Sullivan - July 13, 2010 at 1:45am

It's too bad it came down to this although I don't blame the guy for shutting down all comm with the outside world. From his reaction, it appears that it's next to impossible to please one & all. Thank you George for everything especially your no frills jailbreaks & unlocks that put a word like 'cakewalk' to shame :)

afaf - July 13, 2010 at 1:58am

ur right..!

joe - July 13, 2010 at 1:11am

He made a final tweet before shutting down his twitter account. I failed to screenshot it, but it said something like "follow @mikecohenn for further updates on jailbreaking"

K - July 13, 2010 at 12:03am

Might be a dumb question and kind of hopeful. What did geohot mean in the article by "Its late tonight, Ill think about what to do about this in the morning." Do you think he's releasing the jailbreak tomorrow? I am not asking for one nor a timeline. I have Iphone 3GS new bootrom jailbreaked at 3.1.3 with spirit and I am perfectly fine with it.

Jay - July 13, 2010 at 10:06am

Obviously not since he shut down his twitter too. After staying up all night drinking red bull and talking in robot voices with his friends on the phone, he decided not to.

Andrew - July 12, 2010 at 11:55pm

Here's the facts by me... he was one of the best to come along and make JB accessible to the masses. Simple click and install... but he could have just faded from the scene like most software cracker teams. Oxygen, Radium... they just stopped. No post about we cracked this program but we decided to keep it. What the hell was that... hopefully a break away from the scene will help him focus on what he got into the scene for. If it's a job at Apple... cool. Hell, iOS damn near has all the features i JB for anyways and I've bought most of the apps that I loved. R.I.P. Geohot but even Jordan nor JayZ could stay retired. When you're great you'll come back and show the new genz how it's done.

R - July 12, 2010 at 11:35pm

Even if it turned out he wasn't actually hired by Apple as G says, I can't blame Geohot for stopping incremental progress reports. I'll take the iPhone4 jailbreak whenever it's ready. If the exploit using redn0w for jailbreak and ultrasn0w for unlock had been distributed before the release of iOS4, Apple would have likely closed the loophole. There is no rule that says Geohot has to follow any schedule. This is freeware. A lot of work goes into finding these exploits, and I for one appreciate Geohot and the others that have dedicated their time and resources so I can keep upgrading, unlocking and jailbreaking with little or no effort. I'd hate to lose a good iPhone hacker, but if apple DID hire him, more power to him.

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