Jailbreak warnings -- should you worry?

It looks as if the popular Flipboard app for iPad has added a jailbreak warning in a recent update. Upon launching the app, users that are jailbroken see a pop up warning them of potential issues on a jailbroken device.

Is this anything to be concerned about? I'd highly doubt it. As far as I know, developers can implement a checker for do things like this but it isn't anything new. Skype has been. It's just the first time we've seen a large app practicing this. I vaguely remember getting a pop up warning about my iPhone being jailbroken over a year ago on some rogue app I downloaded.

Flipboard will function just the same as it's supposedly just a warning. When a perturbed reader contacted Flipboard about his misgivings with this new practice, a Flipboard spokesperson had this to say,

“Dennis, we mention it only because Jailbroken iPads can cause conflicts with Flipboard and we can’t offer support for all those variations. We’re not trying to be the Borg.”

I don't personally believe this is going to be a huge issue or something a lot of developers will implement. If they did, I could see how it would become increasingly annoying to deal with the pop ups. What do you guys think? Is this the start of Apple finding a way to curb jailbreaking or is it just a mere annoyance some app developers are implementing on their own accord?

Cult of Mac

Allyson Kazmucha

iMore senior editor from 2011 to 2015.