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iPhone Can Now Run Apache, Python, Vim
An anonymous reader writes "After the first Hello World application, hacker NerveGas and the people at #iphone-shell have built Apache, Python and other Open Source apps for the iPhone using NightWatch's toolchain. Yes, your iPhone can now be a Web Server and do all sort of 1337 things. This also means that third-party applications for iPhone will happen no matter what. People, iPhone Doom could be just around the corner." It's fairly thin on information but if true, this will lead to good things. Like hopefully permission from apple.
Instant Messaging!
Three days from now?? Thats tomorrow!! ~Peter Griffin
When we still want to be able to use the warranty.
I see voided warranties in people's futures! There's no way Apple (or AT&T for that matter) is going to give the "OK" on 3rd party applications. Apache web servers and python scripts? If people really wanted to try to get acceptance they would have started with a diet-calculator or bowling-score manager. Forget it now, I can see AT&T and Apply's lawyers scrambling for ways to avoid the maelstorm of hacks and scripts that could threaten their good name. Windows based phones have allowed 3rd part apps since their inception, but somehow it seems much less ominous. Perhaps because they're mostly used in corporate deployments, and pure geek-types?
'Every program attempts to expand until it can read mail'. In that case every platform evolves until it can run Doom...
iphone webcam. See the world from someone's hip or side of their head.
honestly though, how long before AT&T starts deactivating phone accounts for "data plan abuse" because people are actually using their data plan with these hacks and apps? they already try their hardest to scam their customers into buying the full data plan for their smartphone instead of the cheaper smartphone plan.
I had a AT&T rep threaten me that if I dont change my plan he will have my service shut off.
cingular and now AT&T pride themselves in the absolute crappiest customer service they can give. Threaten customers, scamming them into getting service plans they do not need (All I want is email, websurfing on a phone sucks and who cares about MTV videos on a phone)
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Please don't confuse any "webserver" with a potentially full-blow apache. Answering GET requests by streaming out plaintext html files is accomplished by freshman's programming examples - having a real webserver is much much more.
Given that the iPhone is running some variety of MacOS X, it's highly likely that we see the full potential of this thing unlocked pretty soon. Having a fairly standardized environment, a fairly powerful CPU and a sleek form factor is good.
Being turing-complete isn't good enough for the real world of computing. Any PCL printer is, but do you see anyone here breaking out the champagne over that?
Apples claims of only wanting to "ensure the best possible user experience" by locking out SDK and user created software, they're no more credible than HP when they say the same about the chips and DMCA-spiked firmware in their ink cartridges.
This is because foreign code may not only affect stability and "user experience" but the monopoly you have on that hardware. And reducing the monopoly means commodization of some sort and that's what Apple hates more than anything: fixed, exclusive, expensive 2-year contracts, secrecy around new products, higher-than-expected prices, strict limits on the user (changing the battery? a memory card?) - it's all oriented around their central marketing aim of being in THE special position among all hard- and software manufacturers.
People are buying it, Apple is profitable like nothing and has a crowd of fans silencing all critics - it seems to work, I admit.
I have quite some respect for their marketing and product strategy - they are doing everything right from a shareholder's perspective. (Stock inflation for unreal expectations is not that important)
But don't make the mistake to consider Apple a corporation totally different from its arch rival Microsoft. They're following a different path, but their goal is comparable. If Apple's and MSFT's market shares were reversed, we had the same problems with Mac OS than we have with Windows right now, except their design and safety record wouldn't suck half as bad. But concerning anti-competitive maneuvers, vendor lock-in amd user restrictions, they'd be just the same.