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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."
I don't suppose anyone bothered to read/honor this simple request knowing the effect /. can have on a website.
r ity_Problem
http://iphone.fiveforty.net/wiki/index.php/Popula
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
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.
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.
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.
Sapere aude!
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)
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
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.