This particular piece of news seems to go against every fiber of what we think of with jailbroken devices. The newly released Redbox Instant doesn’t work on them. Normally people jailbreak their phones to get more services available to them. Does this mean they now need to un-jailbreak them?
Redbox Instant, the popular Redbox’s answer to Netflix, was released this week, and now users with jailbroken iPhones and iPads are finding it won’t work on their devices. After loading the app, they get a message reading, “device is compromised.”
Initially Redbox Instant sounds like a great service. For just $6 a month you can access video-streaming of what Redbox has to offer. For $8 a month you can add four DVD rentals a month from their neighborhood kiosks, and for $9 a month you can make those rentals Blu-Rays.
Yet if you have a jailbroken device, you’ve just wasted that initial money, because the streaming service isn’t going to work on your iPhone or iPad. Before you drop your Netflix account in preference of Redbox Instant, realize what you’re getting into. Additionally, some of the more premiere movies, the ones most recently released, aren’t available for streaming. You need to still rent those at the kiosk.
This means you’re not saving any money if you’re one to rent the latest blockbusters. All you’re doing is picking up an additional $6-$9 fee a month. Netflix doesn’t offer the recently-released premiere titles in their streaming either. But the two services still aren’t a push. Netflix has far more titles readily available than Redbox.
The question remains, however, why Redbox Instant doesn’t work with jailbroken devices and why they seem to be adding social commentary to the process by telling you your device has been compromised. “Error” doesn’t seem to be enough for them.
Jailbreakers are already out there, I’m sure, trying to figure out the answer to this. They’re used to finding workarounds to make things work, so they probably won’t waste much time finding a way to make Redbox Instant work on their devices. Those who jailbreak their devices have a certain purpose behind it, so it’s doubtful they will be trying to return them to a factory state just to use Redbox Instant.
Whether they find a fix that will force Redbox Instant to work on jailbroken devices is moot. At this point, for most people, it’s not going to be replacing Netflix streaming anyway.
Have you checked out Redbox Instant? Are you one with a jailbroken iPhone who wants to be able to use the new app? Let us know in the comments below.
