Apple Asks Toyota to Pull Jailbreak Ad Campaign

Apple reportedly asked Toyota to remove from Cydia its exclusive theme created by Toyota's advertising company Velti for promotion of its new vehicle and available for jailbroken iPhones.

Scion, a brand of vehicles manufactured by Toyota, recently developed a custom iPhone theme specifically for jailbroken devices, submitting it to us for hosting in Cydia.

As far as we know, Apple is strongly against jailbroken devices but this advertising campaign may somehow help to legitimize the jailbreak community and also place it in direct competition with Apple's own iAds network. Apple apparently heard about the campaign and has asked Toyota to pull it.

I received a call from our contact at Velti this evening as well as an email asking me to please take the theme out of Cydia. On the phone, he explained Apple had contacted Toyota and requested they remove the theme and stop the advertising campaign. They (Velti) in turn contacted me relaying the message. The reason Velti listed for the removal request of the theme emailed through our dev portal was "Toyota’s making us take it down" Toyota had agreed to do so to "maintain their good relationship with Apple," our Velti contact told me on the phone.