[jsprinkles]

Best solution here would appear to be never sync that iPad again, back it up to iTunes, disable its Wi-Fi, and consider it her speech appliance. Don't update the OS, don't sync to iTunes, never do anything with it again aside from using it for this essential purpose. If you have to buy another one, restore it from your iTunes backup. These are the 'legal' avenues, clearly with jailbreaking it's simpler.

Unfortunate that a legal battle puts you in that position, but if this app is as important to her life as she says, she should be perfectly fine freezing that iPad where it is and not treating it like an iPad any more. It is now a dedicated appliance, not a general-purpose iPad. Buy another one for everything else.

Sucks, but, best solution given the circumstances, I think. Obviously, it'd be great if the circumstances changed.

(Edited to add backup.)

[btilly]

What do you do when it breaks?

Modern computer equipment is not designed to last forever. Computer equipment that is heavily used by a 4 year old is even less likely to survive. (I just was trying to talk in my pool/sandbox/mud/...!)

[jsprinkles]

Thank you, editing in to back up.

[shuzchen]

I think the best solution is to port the code over to android. You might be disallowed from selling your app on any marketplaces, but there's nothing preventing you from running it on your own device.

[SoftwareMaven]

There's nothing to stop them putting the app on their Apple device if they had the source.

[stephen_g]

I wouldn't update to a major new iOS version (to avoid incompatibility issues), but there's no reason to turn off WiFi or not sync it. Like Google with Andriod, Apple has the ability to remotely remove apps from devices, but unlike Google [1] [2] I've never heard of them using it and I can't find any articles that suggest they have.

I assume that it's only for malware (given they haven't removed tethering apps, for example) so I wouldn't worry.

1. http://www.dailytech.com/Google+Uses+Its+Remote+Kill+Android... 2. http://www.neowin.net/news/google-to-remote-kill-malicious-a...

[gcb]

If it's life changing, pay the party that invented the thing, not the ones that copied it in a app.

Now, if it's not remotely equally useful, sue them for something for screwing your life with false claims.

[regularfry]

Who should pay for that? The company which believes they aren't infringing and are already in negotations over the licensing? Or the family who presumable don't have infinite wallets?