Apple closes developer accounts for selling iOS 5 beta slots

Apple is apparently going after developer accounts that have been selling slots to people that allow them to use the latest beta versions of iOS 5, reports Karthikk.net. The developers identified by Apple to be selling their slots have been sent an email and the devices with UDIDs that are associated with that account have been disabled.

Those devices are then pushed into the ‘setup’ mode and are unable to be used beyond that. They must then be downgraded to the latest public version to be used again.

It’s worth noting that this is also the behavior of a device running an earlier version of the iOS 5 beta, like beta 1 and beta 2 which were just disabled for being too old as of yesterday. It’s unclear from the report if the devices that are exhibiting this behavior are perhaps just expiring because they’re on older versions.

Then again, any developer knows that older betas expire, so if the users are actually legitimate developers, they would know to upgrade the devices to the newest beta.

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As long as developer accounts have been active, there have been those users that just can’t wait to get their hands on the latest version of Apple’s software for iPhones and iPads. And where there is a demand, there will be someone who will try to make money off of it. There are dozens of sites on the net that will sell an interested party a developer beta slot in order to allow them to run the new software even though they aren’t developers. This is, of course, against Apple’s developer agreements which specify that the devices must be used for development by the account holder or a member of their team.

This pursuit of those who abuse developer accounts to make money off of selling the slots has been a long time coming. If the reports are accurate and Apple is closing accounts being misused this way, it’s definitely a good thing.