First iPhone 3rd Party GUI App Compiles

CmputrAce writes "Well, it's here now. The #iphone-dev team has compiled the first third-party application for the iPhone. Of course, it is the standard "Hello, world." application, but it's native to the iPhone and uses the iPhone's GUI. This opens up the iPhone for development by anyone who can forge through the process of cracking the iPhone, installing the iPhone "Toolchain", writing an application, compiling, translating, and finally installing the application to the iPhone. With the pace of development at present, expect to see commercial "jailbreak" (mod-enabling) applications soon as well. You can already get high-quality applications (Mac) to theme the iPhone and add your own ring tones (Win) for the phone."

Comments

Nintendo DS emulator here we come

[Anonymous Coward]

Yknow what would be perfect for the iphone? A nintendo DS emulator. Its already got the touchscreen

Don't bother honoring the webmasters requests

[BitZtream]

I don't suppose anyone bothered to read/honor this simple request knowing the effect /. can have on a website.

http://iphone.fiveforty.net/wiki/index.php/Popular ity_Problem

Re:Change ringtones?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's true. Are you trolling, or have you not bothered to do any research at all on something that you're considering purchasing?

Strategic Blunder, Missed Opportunity

[aldheorte]

Apple made a big strategic blunder in choosing Cingular/AT&T as an exclusive partner. If they had made a multi-band phone and sold it SIM-less, they could well have cracked the carrier market wide open. All the carriers would have scrambled to offer voice and data plans for it on launch because a subscriber is a subscriber in the end. Game theory would have led to one of the players 'cheating' on refusing to offer plans for a non-locked phone and as soon as the first one had cheated on the tacit collusion they currently engage in with all the other carriers, they would have all had to follow suit. Apple would have opened up the market for selling SIM-less phones and not constrained themselves to a very limited U.S. market.

What does this have to do with the devkit? If Apple had done this, they would have been able to officially open up the devkit and application developers would have created a legitimate cottage industry around it, making it into a extremely versatile mobile communicator. The iPhone would have been revolutionary (literally) rather than a overpriced, though flashy, paperweight for anyone but those foolish enough to sign a contract with Cingular/AT&T (I don't view the use of it just for wifi as really relevant since then it must simple be viewed as a PDA and not a general communications device, and there are far better PDA solutions out there).

The last hope for a healthy carrier market now lies with Google's attempt to force itself into the spectrum auction.

Re:Strategic Blunder, Missed Opportunity

[suv4x4]

When has Apple tied their other offerings to specific carriers? Would this be comparable to how Apple does not die their desktop offerings to AOL? Please elaborate.

He means: Apple always limits the options of their customers to retain control of the offer and the final experience.

They don't allow you to install OSX on custom hardware. They don't allow people to build Apple-compatible hardware. They have locked down almost everything in their OS interface, and the options are limited.

Initially they had all proprietary ports for peripherals even, and you had to buy special Apple printers and what not (now they're more liberal in that department).

They didn't allow custom apps in the iPod (except approved and checked by them through iTunes), and now on the iPhone.

All of this has ensured Apple's ability to survive on a very competitive market. But it's also the reason why they have such a small fraction of the market. It's a tough business model, but since they picked it, now they have to sustain it.

There's considerable possibility that if they go all loose and PC-like by allowing everything and everyone mix and match parts of Apple, they'll simply vanish in a market of similar opportunities.

Re:DMCA

[Joe The Dragon]

The DMCA says that you can hack a phone to unlock it so it will not get in the way of that kind of hacking.

Re:Not dupe Re:Dupe

[Graff]

The really cool thing here is reading the source code of the "Hello World" application. It's great to see that it's pretty standard stuff for Mac OS X programmers. I mean I know that the iPhone is running a version of Mac OS X but it didn't really hit home until I saw the familiar Cocoa programming that I use to make Mac OS X applications for desktop and laptop computers.

This is very exciting for developers, I really hope that Apple either encourages this or at the worst turns a blind eye to it. Apple hasn't done much to discourage people from modding their iPods, Macintoshes, or Apple TVs, lets hope that trend continues. If the iPhone becomes a true handheld computer and not just a fancy phone then I can see it really taking off.

Re:DMCA

[morcheeba]

The DMCA exemption is exceedingly narrow -- it only allows you to connect to a network, not run your own apps. It's so limited that a PC-based unlocking program wouldn't be allowed to bypass the DMCA to install the (temporarily legal) firmware, because the exemption applies only to firmware that runs on the phone and not regular computer software. The DMCA is still a major roadblock to fair use.

Computer programs in the form of firmware that enable wireless telephone handsets to connect to a wireless telephone communication network, when circumvention is accomplished for the sole purpose of lawfully connecting to a wireless telephone communication network. ---- exemption 5, expires October 2009 (source)

Great, until...

[eagl]

I'll probably get modded down for speaking an unpleasant truth, but...

This is all great, until Apple and AT&T remotely shut off the phones due to violating the terms of service. How many console and other online accounts have been disabled due to cheating or other "legit" modding? It's just a matter of time before we hear the first reports of people having their iphones cut off, with no subscription fee refund.

If Apple is really smart, they'll figure out how to shut off the phone and continue to charge any subscription fees until the original service plan expires. Free money for them, and no legal recourse for anyone who willfully violated the TOS.

Yea it's not very nice but they have a business plan that probably doesn't include having customers bypassing the fee-based services they provide. Unlike the iopener fiasco, the iphone is cool enough that it'll keep selling no matter how many people lose their service after hacking/modding/whatever their iphone.

Um, did *you* read the request?

[AdmiralWeirdbeard]

...cause it also said not to link directly to the wiki like you did.
Just sayin...

Re:Battery Life

[Sparks23]

The iPhone battery lasts a good few hundred charge cycles -- i.e., being fully drained and charged -- before it stops holding a charge as effectively. It does not die, it just does not hold as complete a charge as it used to.

Yeah, that is lousy... but this is not an iPhone-specific issue. It is the major drawback of all Li-ion batteries (including those in other cellular phones).

The advantage of Li-ion is that unlike most other rechargeable batteries, they will not self-discharge (i.e. lose power when not in use) nearly so badly, but the cost of that is a battery which does 'age' and lose efficiency the more charge cycles you go through, and which is temperature sensitive. There's a good article on lithium-ion battery limitations on Wikipedia, or you can just google Li-ion to find other various battery FAQs on the net.

I find it sort of telling that Apple decided they'd be up-front about this general limitation of the lithium-ion rechargable batteries in phones and laptops -- a limitation all Li-ion batteries share -- and they've taken nothing but flack for it, as if it were all their fault. No wonder companies don't like to tell consumers that sort of thing.

It is unfortunate that an iPhone user cannot replace a dead battery themselves, sure. And the battery price is kinda high; most smartphones, the battery tends to be around $50. Though they also tend only to last about 3-4 hours under full use; Apple's battery is larger capacity, so I'm not surprised it costs a little more. Though I think double the cost is a bit pricy, even including the battery replacement labor. So, yeah, the iPhone maybe deserves a bit of razzing over their battery situation for the high cost.

But the battery charge limitations are not in any way unique to Apple's batteries. And I know I am getting a little tired of people throwing stuff at Apple as if they are responsible for a limitation which exists in the battery technology in pretty much all the mobile devices I have. Including my Dell laptop, my Panasonic cordless phone, my Canon digital camera, my old HTC handhelds, and so on... none of which came from Apple.

Re:So....

[TheRaven64]

That's not what people said about the iPod when it was launched The thing most people miss is that the first iPod really was lame. It was less lame than its competitors (smaller, better UI) but it was still:

• Mac only.
• MP3 only (no AAC).
• Only 5GB.
• Too big to be comfortable in a pocket (not far off, but still just to big).
  • It also had a mechanical scroll wheel that fell off if you poked it wrongly. The third generation iPod, however, was an absolutely gorgeous device; thin, decent battery life, 20GB, AAC support, etc. The newer ones have some feature creep, but at least the latest ones are smaller again (the 4G ones were bigger than the 3G).

    It's an established fact that version 1 of anything Apple produce is pretty shoddy. It might have some nice features (the iPhone definitely does), but it's far from being a must-have gadget. The second or third revision is usually where it moves into the 'must have' category. So, please, all of you early adopters run and buy your iPhone, and fund the R&D for the one that's actually worth the money.