First Third-party Native iPhone Application Released

An anonymous reader writes "A third-party native application for the iPhone is now available. Gizmodo discusses the real full-fledged iPhone application with a graphic user interface and its own icon in the iPhone home screen. It is not a Web 2.0 app but the real thing. What is it? Ironically enough, MobileTerminal, 'a terminal emulator application for the iPhone. MobileTerminal.app is NOT an SSH client, nor Telnet for that matter. It can however be used to execute a console ssh-client application.' The iPhone dev revolution has just started."

Comments

SWEET!

[AdmiralWeirdbeard]

...thats *totally* what I wanted to to with my multimedia smartphone!
Terminal!

Re:SWEET!

[Reverend528]

There are lots of neat things that you could do from the terminal on a multimedia smartphone.

You can use it to pipe text messages to festival. Then it's like you're actually talking to the other person!

Re:SWEET!

[doxology]

At last, the iPhone has a decent interface!

Re:SWEET!

[jcgf]

I dunno, if I can also get ssh, then the iphone would be useful to me.

Re:SWEET!

[smenor]

I'll second that.

I just wish AT&T's network coverage wasn't crap where I live so I wouldn't have had to return it... and still be charged $110 for the privilege.

Re:SWEET!

[lucifuge31337]

It's beyond me how someone would switch carriers without trying out the service first. A $20 prepaid phone from RadioShack or similar comes with like $10 worth of airtime. Carry it around your normal places for a week. Try it first. It's really your own fault if you lost that kind of money because you aren't in a good enough service area - it's just not that hard to figure out before signing a 2-year contract, ESPECIALLY on a phone with a restocking fee.

Re:SWEET!

[eean]

She get Maddox's phone... they don't lock down the device.

Re:SWEET!

[that this is not und]

Now all somebody needs to do is port bochs to it!

Re:SWEET!

[Anonymous Coward]

I've heard of a couple potential SSH clients that would work on the iPhone.

WebShell is a project that is geared specifically as an SSH client for the iPhone. The problem is that it requires installation on any server that you want SSH access to.

GotoSSH.com appears to provide web SSH access that would probably also work on the iPhone. It seems unique because it doesn't require any software installation on the SSH servers. I've found it handy since I can connect to some of my servers that are outside of my work firewall (which blocks SSH traffic of course).

I'm not sure how useful it would really be to try and use a text terminal on an iPhone, but I suppose it would be handy to be able to restart a daemon process or other quick maintenance commands.

Re:SWEET!

[cepstral-voices]

Or use Cepstral (the commercial TTS engine founded by the creators of Festival) and the person might actually believe its you talking. Or better yet, I hear Cepstral has a new initiative, VoiceForge, where you can create your own voice and soon put that on your iPod. Meet my agent....mini-me.

Re:SWEET!

[dknj]

plus all cell phone providers are showing off their new 14 day try for free policy that the government mandated upon them a year or so ago.

oh you didn't know??

Re:SWEET!

[smenor]

It's beyond me how someone would switch carriers without trying out the service first. A $20 prepaid phone from RadioShack or similar comes with like $10 worth of airtime.

Well... for starters, I wasn't even aware that that that was an option.

it's just not that hard to figure out before signing a 2-year contract

A 2 year contract... with a 2-week trial period (with which, I naively assumed I could - and follow me here - try the service).

It's really your own fault if you lost that kind of money because you aren't in a good enough service area

Yes, it is my fault. I fully admit that. I didn't read the contract in detail, I stupidly assumed that when AT&T's own site said

Q. Do you have a special return policy for iPhones? A. Yes. Apple branded equipment is covered by a 14-day return policy and must be returned to the original point of purchase. If the Apple branded equipment is returned unopened and in the original shrink wrapping, it will be refunded back to the original payment method. Opened Apple branded equipment that is returned within 14 days will be subject to a 10% open box restocking fee. All products must be packed in their original, unmarked packaging including any accessories and manuals that shipped with the product.

that meant that there was a two week trial period with a 10% restocking fee so that I could try the phone and the service for two weeks and, if I didn't like it, pay Apple the restocking fee, and return the phone without paying connect fees and a for a month worth of crappy service that I couldn't really use.

ESPECIALLY on a phone with a restocking fee.

I was fully aware of that going in - and (when I bought the phone), I figured that it was worth 60-bucks to try the iPhone and the service out for a week or two. Seemed like a reasonable plan considering that AT&T's coverage map said that I have "good" coverage in my area.

When it turned out that 'good' coverage in my area actually meant that I couldn't even use the phone inside, I was ready to pay the restocking fee.

Except... when I took the phone back to the Apple Store, they actually decided to waive the 10% restocking fee because I had problems with network coverage.

Unfortunately, AT&T wasn't so generous.

Apparently they honor their two week trial period by charging a startup fee and a month of service to anyone foolish enough to believe their bogus return policy.

The saddest thing about the whole situation is that it really is a great phone and in about 6 months, I'll be moving and I would have very much liked to get another one, and would have gladly handed over at least a few thousand to AT&T if it weren't for this experience.

Oh well... caveat emptor, I guess.

Re:SWEET!

[SimHacker]

I use Cepstral's speech synthesizer on the Pocket PC, so my iPAQ phone can talk, and I'm quite happy with it. I licensed the Cepstral Swift SDK, which came with a bunch of voices, and binaries to run them on Linux, PocketPC and Mac. It works quite well and the voices are great (although I had some problem understanding the barking dog voice -- maybe it's a different dialect that I'm used to).

But since the iPod is a closed platform, what are the chances that Cepstral will port (and support) Swift and their library of voices on the iPhone? Sure it might be possible for somebody to port the open source Flite (the light weight version of Festival) or even Festival itself to the iPhone. But what about the voices, which are MUCH harder to create than simply porting a bunch of portable software, and proprietary.

A speech synthesizer without voices in the languages you need is not much use. Sure you can theoretically develop your own voices with the open source festvox tools, but that's a huge amount of difficult tedious production work (Cepstral charges on the order of $10,000 for the labor of creating a new English voice) that requires expert voice talent, data wranglers and programmers. So there are very few good open source voices available, and the good proprietary ones are well worth paying for, if you're developing a product that requires speech (especially speech in multiple languages).

There's really no point in trying to develop a product on the iPhone if it's not really open and officially supported by Apple, and SDKs like Cepstral's Swift API are not available for it. There are many of things my iPAQ can do (like GPS, run TomTom Navigator, speak with Cepstral voices, run Flash, Java, Lua, Python, JavaScript, and C++ code, etc.), that the iPhone is incapable of doing, because it's a closed system.

-Don

Re:SWEET!

[nine-times]

You joke, but I have an iPhone and one of the big things I'd really want is a SSH client (along with a ToDo list that syncs with my mac and an IM client). Web apps aren't good enough, IMO.

Re:SWEET!

[Whiteox]

This is going back a bit, but if you have a text terminal, you could write a widget that'll carry out actions on a remote computer.
You could do more than that if you put your mind to it. (COMS 101)

Re:SWEET!

[TClevenger]

I get the joke, but I can't tell you how many times PocketPuTTY on my MDA has saved my ass. While I wouldn't write shell scripts on it, it's great being able to add users, reset passwords and restart services out in the middle of nowhere.

Now if only somebody would release a Bluetooth keyboard for Windows Mobile like those old Palm foldup jobbies...

Re:SWEET!

[Hes Nikke]

don't forget that the OS from which the iPhone OS (OS X) is derived from Mac OS X, which in itself has a pretty powerful TTS engine, that frankly sounds MUCH more human, though still not natural. i'd be kinda surprised if that apple's TTS engine isn't already on the iPhone waiting to be used.

Re:SWEET!

[Hes Nikke]

um... let me rewrite that for clarity:

don't forget that OS X (iPhone's OS) is derived from Mac OS X, which in itself has a pretty powerful TTS engine, that frankly sounds MUCH more human, though still not natural. i'd be kinda surprised if apple's TTS engine isn't already on the iPhone waiting to be used - especially since they've been putting some resources into it lately. [link - it's a shame they don't have the sample for alex posted anymore... you'll hear it in october!]

Re:SWEET!

[SimHacker]

This is a great example of the unbridled and unrealistic enthusiasm of Mac fan-boys, projecting their wildest fantasies and assumptions onto the sparse reality distorted by Steve Job's Reality Distortion Field.

Of course he wants you to think he has a TTS engine already installed on the iPhone, but he never actually claimed that himself, so technically he's not a liar. But in reality, there is no such TTS engine on the iPhone. But the Turing Completeness Argument demands that you point out that it would be POSSIBLE for that to happen. But so what? It would also be possible that you could get a free Bluetooth enabled talking pony with every iPhone, so you would not need a speech synthesizer.

Naturally Jobs wants you to think you can write "Web 2.0" JavaScript AJAX applications that take advantage of the multi touch input screen, but actually there is no way you can do that from JavaScript. He never claimed it was possible, but many people jumped to that conclusion, without checking the facts. I actually bothered to ask an Apple employee who was working on the iPhone, and he admitted that no, you can't take advantage of the multi touch input device from JavaScript/AJAX/DHTML in the web browser.

-Don

Re:SWEET!

[wealthychef]

Yes, sorry, but every chance I get I scream the following warning to people: IPHONE HAS NO TO-DO LIST, DOES NOT COPY AND PASTE, AND DOES NOT DO VIDEO. Three major boners by Apple. I'm bleeding on the edge...

Re:SWEET!

[nine-times]

• has not todo list - yes, that bothers me. I'm still hopeful this will be solved, since todo lists will be moved into Mail.app in Leopard.
• does not copy and paste - it hasn't really bothered me yet. Most things are organized well enough that copy/paste isn't very necessary
• does not do video - huh? it plays video just fine.

Re:SWEET!

[smenor]

It's been awhile but I have a small - but significant - correction / retraction.

After spending a fair bit of time haggling with AT&T, they reduced the fee down to include only activation ($37) and they said that they would have eliminated that but I didn't cancel my service within three days of activation.

That seems perfectly acceptable to me - especially considering that your Radio Shack prepaid phone solution would have cost close enough to that as to not be worth the bother (and, if someone was sufficiently motivated, they could have tried and cancelled the service within three days at no cost except for the time and hassle of having to deal with customer service if something gets screwed up, as it did in my case)

Revolution?

[pudding7]

Tell me again why this is a revolution? The iPhone is a pretty cool toy, but remind me what's revolutionary about it? Folks, Apple is a company that makes neat products. It's not a club or a religion.

Re:Revolution?

[AdmiralWeirdbeard]

Heretic! All shall bow before the iChurch...

Re:Revolution?

[supremebob]

"Folks, Apple is a company that makes neat products. It's not a club or a religion"

You've never seen any coverage of MacWorld, have you? It's like Steve Jobs' own personal cult! They way they fawn over every single product in his keynote addresses is beyond pathetic... it's downright scary.

Re:Revolution?

[JamesRose]

You've never seen any coverage of Mass, have you? It's like Jesus' own personal cult! They way they fawn over every single parable in his gospel is beyond pathetic... it's downright scary.

Re:Revolution?

[His Shadow]

You've never seen any coverage of Microsoft, have you? It's like Bill Gates' own personal cult! They way they fawn over every single soon-to-be-irrelevant failure in his keynote addresses is beyond pathetic... it's downright scary.

Re:Revolution?

[hax0r_this]

You've never invested in Apple right before MacWorld, have you? Its like profit! The way they fawn over every single product in Jobs' keynote address is CA$H

Re:Revolution?

[Anonymous Coward]

You've never tried to criticize Linux, have you? It's like cracking open a can of beer in a Mosque! They jump all over you and rip you to shreds... it's downright scary.

You've never tried to criticize Window, have you? It's like uttering the word Socialism at a Republican convention! They all break out their shotguns and try to lynch you... it's downright scary.

Now that most of the normal flamewar triggers have been pulled out of the bag can have a rational discussion now? .....

Re:Revolution?

[soft_guy]

Your post is so original and insightful that I'm sure legions of people are now saying "Gee, I need to rethink my relationship to apple."

You have answered the age old quesiton: do you want to post to slashdot, or do you want to CHANGE THE WORLD??? Well, I think in this post you have clearly accomplished both.

Re:Revolution?

[gunny01]

I was recently berated by a Mac user for claiming that Steve was going to announce new iMacs. His response:

"You know NOTHING about Steve Jobs!"

And he stormed off. You'd think he was the Messiah or something...

Re:Revolution?

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh, like, did you not notice the iPhone has only 3 physical buttons and one control surface, whereas every other smartphone is littered with buttons? Did you not notice the relatively huge screen for such a pocketable device? Did you not notice the lack of a stylus? Did you not notice that the UI morphs to meet the needs of the current task? Did you not notice the use of gestures to control the device and the use of visual feedback? Did you not notice how the user interacts via a built-in accelerometer? Did you not notice the visual voice mail? Did you not notice the accurate rendering of web pages using the built-in browser, and the equally accurate rendering of HTML e-mail? Did you not notice how easy it is to pan and zoom?

Oh, sorry, I didn't realize you were blind.

Re:Revolution?

[E IS mC(Square)]

Blasphemy! And now he is mad!

Re:Revolution?

[AHumbleOpinion]

Heretic! All shall bow before the iChurch...

... or suffer the flames.

Hey burning at the stake is still with us. It is just more anonymous and less messy nowadays.

Re:Revolution?

[zussal]

It makes the yuppies look stylish!

Re:Revolution?

[djh101010]

Tell me again why this is a revolution? The iPhone is a pretty cool toy, but remind me what's revolutionary about it? Folks, Apple is a company that makes neat products. It's not a club or a religion. Well for starters, you're doing that whole "pretend to be speaking for the opposition" thing which, sorry, you're not. It's a great device that does everything it does very well. Yes, I could do pretty much everything this thing does with my Treo but, the iPhone does it all with a more logical, consistent GUI, well thought out process flow, and all sorts of other things that people who merely tick off a features list will miss the value of. It's the same old story - people who want a car to get from home to work won't understand why (insert brand name here) is a nicer car, while those who have said car value the differences that the other person does not.

That said, a terminal app on my iPhone? Are you kidding? Hell yes, I'll set it up. It's not so much that it gives me a command line interface, it's that it gives me access to the Unix system in my pocket. Again, if you don't value that and don't get it, it's _fine_, really, but that doesn't mean it's without value to those who understand the value of such a thing.

Re:Revolution?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow. You're including slightly-easier-to-pan-and-zoom in your list of revolutionary features? 'Cause I wasn't quite sure the iPhone was revolutionary until you got to that one, but man.. it really pushed it over the top.

Re:Revolution?

[xeoron]

Send him to the food bank to feed the gigashadow!

Re:Revolution?

[Sparr0]

The iPhone is everything the Nokia 770 could have been... if Nokia had the brains to *PUT A PHONE IN IT*.

PS: Yes, I got a 770 in the recent mass discounting craze. Yes, I love it. Yes, I use it for VOIP over EDGE... making it a phone.

Re:Revolution?

[Anonymous Coward]

The iPhone is a pretty cool toy, but remind me what's revolutionary about it? Folks, Apple is a company that makes neat products. It's not a club or a religion.

It's the first phone that's more art than science. If that turned your crank, you'd know by now. Have fun with the OpenMoko or whatever.

Re:Revolution?

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps he noticed the price tag, the 2year contract, and the fact that its from AT&T...

Re:Revolution?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow. You're including slightly-easier-to-pan-and-zoom in your list of revolutionary features? 'Cause I wasn't quite sure the iPhone was revolutionary until you got to that one, but man.. it really pushed it over the top.

To those who understand, no explanation is necessary.
To those who do not understand, no explanation is possible.

Not sure that bodes well for AAPL's stock price in the long run, but there you have it.

Re:Revolution?

[tunesmith]

For me, it's a revolution just because it's the first product that has reached a critical mass point to make me less likely to use my laptop. I make my living from my laptop, and I'm kind of anchored to it, which affects my daily lifestyle. The iPhone reduces my need to open my laptop by about 60%. This changes my lifestyle dramatically. It's actually a bit traumatic (in a positive sense) and I haven't completely adjusted to it. I'm actually considering traveling more, taking more working vacations, taking up running... I don't know, it's like it has made *me* more portable without me having to discipline myself to be as such. The impact is difficult to measure.

Re:Revolution?

[LKM]

Of course Apple isn't a club or religion. That doesn't mean that making a phone which is targeted at end users rather than at carriers isn't at least a tiny bit revolutionary - not to mention that it's the first consumer-level device that comes with a multitouch screen :-)

Re:Revolution?

[Anonymous Coward]

Heh, the iPhone is a LOT easier to pan and zoom, and no other phone has or will have multi-touch. You won't believe it until you try it. Good riddens to the stylus and hunting and pecking at scroll bars.

Not mentioned is the revolution in cell phone activation. Done in one's own home. If iTunes 7.3 is already installed, it takes less than 5 minutes in many cases.

Re:Revolution?

[Anonymous Coward]

obligatory quote from Maddox (http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=i phone)

First of all, the E70 has a full keyboard, not some shitty stripped down, tap-and-pray smudgy piece of shit. Nokia uses a technology that's even more advanced than the iPhone's tap screen, allowing you to actually feel the keys you press as you're pressing them! The technology is called "tactile response," and it allows you to do things like dial a phone number without staring at your screen like a shit-chucking ape. In fact, every other cellphone ever made has this technology, sometimes called "buttons."

Re:Revolution?

[Anonymous Coward]

Good luck using that terminal and trying to type something more complicated than "cd" and "ls"

I agree with Maddox. The iPhone does nothing worth while that a Nokia E70 can't do better.

Re:Revolution?

[toddestan]

Like he says, the iPhone is a cool toy, but how exactly has it revolutionized the cell phone world? That's right, it hasn't.

Re:Revolution?

[wfberg]

The iPhone reduces my need to open my laptop by about 60%.

And this would not, could not have happened, if instead of an iPhone, you would have purchased a blackberry or windows-mobile based phone? Which have been available now for years?

Re:Revolution?

[Lars T.]

Like he says, the iPhone is a cool toy, but how exactly has it revolutionized the cell phone world? That's right, it hasn't. Sure, but then neither has any other phone in the last 20 years.

Re:Revolution?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh dead gods... Now different and acceptable equals revolutionary...

Re:Revolution?

[SimHacker]

Oh come on, that's bullshit and you know it. The iPhone is absolutely targeted at and designed for the needs (or whims) of carriers, specifically AT&T, at the (extreme) expense of the user.

Are you claiming that end users do not want the ability to use free MP3 or $0.99 iTunes songs as ring tones, and would rather buy and use $6.99 ring tones from the carrier instead? Or will you admit that maybe the phone is locked up specifically to make that impossible, because of the carrier's desire to make money, not because of the needs of the user? Or are you so brainwashed by Steve Job's reality distortion field that you can't see that fact?

-Don

Re:Revolution?

[LKM]

Oh come on, that's bullshit and you know it. The iPhone is absolutely targeted at and designed for the needs (or whims) of carriers, specifically AT&T, at the (extreme) expense of the user.

There are a lot of things that Apple did for AT&T, but it's definitely more aimed at users than other phones.

Are you claiming that end users do not want the ability to use free MP3 or $0.99 iTunes songs as ring tones, and would rather buy and use $6.99 ring tones from the carrier instead?

Since they can do neither, discussing this is somewhat moot at this point.

Or will you admit that maybe the phone is locked up specifically to make that impossible, because of the carrier's desire to make money, not because of the needs of the user? Or are you so brainwashed by Steve Job's reality distortion field that you can't see that fact?

Dude, you can't buy ringtones for the iPhone. And once you can, it won't be from AT&T, but from Apple's iTunes Store. Not sure who's the one who's brainwashed here.

Re:Revolution?

[SimHacker]

Yes or No: Can you use ANY MP3 file you want as a ringtone on your iPhone, or not?

If the answer is no, that you have to buy special ring tones from iTunes, then you're screwed. THAT is my point. The fact that you can't get iPhone ring tones from Apple or AT&T yet only reinforces my point. If you can't see that, then you're the one who's totally brainwashed.

My PocketPC phone can play ANY audio file as a ring tone, and you iPhone can't. Why can't your iPhone do something as simple as that, which any PocketPC phone can do? Afraid it will take down the phone network??? (You don't actually believe Job's load of bullshit excuse do you?) No, it's because the PocketPC platform is fundamentally better than the iPhone because it's OPEN, and it doesn't restrict you from doing anything that would cut into AT&T's or Apple's business model.

Does your iPhone have built-in GPS like my iPAQ phone? If not, then you have to carry around an external Bluetooth GPS device to know where you are. Now that you know where you are, does your iPhone run navigation software like TomTom to tell you where to go? No, because it's impossible for TomTom or any other software developer to port their applications to the iPhone. And even if some super-hacker managed to write some AJAX GPS navigation software in JavaScript and DHTML that ran in the web browser, it still could not communicate with the Bluetooth GPS device, because the code running the browser is sandboxed with no access to any of the phone's features or devices. You're screwed all ways around.

Q: What do you get when you cross Apple and AT&T?
A: AT&T!

-Don

Re:Revolution?

[LKM]

Yes or No: Can you use ANY MP3 file you want as a ringtone on your iPhone, or not?

I'm not sure whether you read what I wrote. I already answered this. The iPhone currently comes with a set of predefined ringtones. You can't add any, either by buying them or by adding them yourself, without using a hack.

If the answer is no, that you have to buy special ring tones from iTunes

Again, you can not change the ring tones at all. You can't "buy special ring tones from iTunes."

Until you can, you have no point. Apple obviously left out a lot of features to get the first version of the iPhone out. We simply don't know whether we'll be able to set our own music as ringtones, or whether we'll have to buy them from Apple.

The rest of your argument (PocketPC is fundamentally better because you can install apps, and iPAQ is better because it has GPS) has nothing to do with the point you're trying to disprove, so I'll just take the liberty of ignoring it.

IPhone Revolution?

[3dWarlord]

Spare me. OpenMoko is an open platform that supports third party development.

Re:IPhone Revolution?

[sokoban]

Spare me. OpenMoko is an open platform that nobody cares about.

It does look cool, but without an Apple sized hype-machine and good support from cell phone companies and service providers I don't see it taking off.

Re:IPhone Revolution?

[ivan256]

Except that the full featured handset doesn't even exist yet, and the half-baked one you can actually get doesn't work (at least according to their own website):

"Currently it is not suitable for users. The state of the software at the moment is pre-alpha. If you order a Neo1973, DO NOT expect to be able to use it as an everyday phone."

Nice "phone" you've got there.

Re:IPhone Revolution?

[DaleGlass]

Nobody cares about the iPhone as a platform either.

With no official SDK who is going to make applications for it? Maybe a couple of geeks happy to mess with something that's not documented and for which there's absolutely zero support from the vendor, but nobody of much importance. They'll have exactly the same problem you say OpenMoko has: That very few people will ever hear that something can be installed into an iPhone, and fewer yet will install something.

Installing applications will probably not be just a matter of point and click on a standard phone either.

Re:IPhone Revolution?

[Anonymous Coward]

How sad.

I wonder when exactly it become standard on slashdot to denounce cool hackable devices in favour of locked down proprietary devices?

Re:IPhone Revolution?

[higman.schmidt]

OpenMoko is GSM compliant. It uses a SIM card, so the service providers dont need to support it, just pop in the SIM card and you're good.

Re:IPhone Revolution?

[mechanyx]

I want a phone running OpenMoko so that I can do the following things:

1) automatically check unknown numbers against whocalled.us type telemarketer lists
2) log ALL calls - especially useful to see how many times ppl from 1) have called you if you set it up to show while ringing
3) *MY* ringtones - they don't sell Wagner, Scriabin, Schnittke or death metal on those services - not that I'd want to pay for music I already own.
4) ringback tones
5) advanced blacklisting functionality
6) the ability to have my phone turned on to use as a clock or whatever without it being on the network so no one can call me (think movie theater or orchestral concert hall here)
7) things I haven't thought of yet

Re:IPhone Revolution?

[Anonymous Coward]

have you tried the OpenMoko phones yet? How about the iPhone? yeah, spare me.

Re:IPhone Revolution?

[Mattsson]

Installing applications will probably not be just a matter of point and click on a standard phone either. Installing third party software is a matter of point and click on a standard phone, if you haven't got an old relic of a phone that doesn't support MIDP.

It goes like this:
1. Use standard broser to download an application you like, for instance Wayfinder Earth or Opera Mini
2. Copy the application to your SD or MS-card, if your phone support those, or connect your phone to your pc via USB, IR, Bluetooth or serial and install it using the application-installer supplied by the producer of your phone, whatever works best for you.

You still need to know how to open a web page in a browser and click a hyperlink and then either copy a file onto your SD/MS-card or how to put the cd that came with your phone in the cd-player and press "Install", plug a cable into the computer, start an application in windows and how to read buttons like one labled "Install" and then choose a file in a file-selector.
Still, there is no magic or any hacks involved.
All steps are done by "Point and click".

You also have the alternative of using the existing WAP-browser on your phone to install directly over the air, but that means you have to know how to enter a web-adress into a textfield on your phone and how to click a hyperlink in your WAP-browser.
Not "Point and click", unless you've got a smartphone with a stylus/touchscreen.

Re:IPhone Revolution?

[DaleGlass]

Standard iPhone I mean.

It's a nice accomplishment that somebody managed to add a terminal to their iPhone, but unless they somehow manage to come up with a way of installing their app on an unmodified iPhone that doesn't require going through arcane incantations, there's not going to be much of a revolution. And if they find one, Apple may very well close that hole in the next firmware revision.

Re:IPhone Revolution?

[DJNephilim]

Cool, hackable (yet, non-functional) devices in favor of locked-down proprietary (working quite well, thank you) devices.

First and foremost on my list of 'wants' when I purchase a product is: It works.

Re:IPhone Revolution?

[hotfireball]

But frankly it is FUGLY. (oops, sorry)

Re:IPhone Revolution?

[thePsychologist]

A little late to reply perhaps, but there are those who do care about OpenMoko. There is already a phone for it coming out in October (FIC Neo1973) with 2G capabilities with some extras ("2.5G"). It has been covered in the news several times (The Economist for one), and it doesn't need the support of providers because:

-It will work with almost any network in the world that supports a SIM card, including Rogers.
-Applications are free and many applications can already be ported to it.

Re:IPhone Revolution?

[digitalchinky]

You don't need OpenMoko to do those things already, though I'm sure it would do them far better. I have a Nokia N80 that has each of the things you describe, (most provided by 3rd parties) including a few you haven't thought of yet :-) The only downside is that it does all of these things a little too slowly.

I have an IVR system - whenever people I don't know call, they can choose to leave a message, get their call rejected outright, or receive a polite SMS telling them to have a nice day, all based on calling number, address book entries, or black and white lists.

Also have A complex filter for rejecting unwanted SMS, based on either the content of the text itself, or the senders number.

Now if only the K and W models from Sony Ericsson could do this, I'd be happy.

Re:IPhone Revolution?

[LKM]

Dude, gp was in reply to people saying that buying an OpenMoko is a better idea than buying an iPhone. For most people, it's not, as the site states. How is quoting a product's web site "denouncing" the product?

Re:IPhone Revolution?

[ivan256]

What isn't hackable again?

And what did I "favor"... Yeah, I said something negative about one device, but that's it.... I didn't hold some other device on high...

Re:IPhone Revolution?

[0xdeadbeef]

It doesn't have to take off. In fact, it will probably be a commercial failure. But we should all be glad it exists as symbol of the ultimate good to contrast against Apple's ultimate evil. The mobile computing revolution is just beginning to take off, and Apple stands to cut if off at the knees if they can manage to produce their devices cheaply enough to convince the masses that an almost-smartphone is a better replacement to the feature phone than a real smartphone.

Sure, it might give you the "real internet", but so does AOL. It's all about lock-in and captive eyeballs and DRM. It's a content delivery channel, not a general purpose computer.

Network impact

[hypermanng]

Assuming Apple doesn't take steps in a subsequent update to actively disable third party applications, this could provide a channel for showing (or not) that third party applications doesn't automatically mean disruption of the provider network. Hopefully the inaugural apps will play nice, creating pressure on Apple to release an SDK to make it more likely that subsequent apps also play nice, rather than start patching it closed like a console. Apple has to respond, but they could go either way.

Re:Network impact

[garcia]

this could provide a channel for showing (or not) that third party applications doesn't automatically mean disruption of the provider network.

Whatever bullshit AT&T is trying to feed its customers about the reason for this being disabled because of "network interruption" needs to stop. This is simply that AT&T had persuaded Apple to not allow third party development so that AT&T could profit from selling their own applications.

Re:Network impact

[hypermanng]

I can think of a wide variety of reasons that they didn't allow 3rd party development, and not all of them involve AT&T at all. However, public justifications matter to companies that care about PR - and Apple does. If facts on the ground make their earlier negotiated agreements (whatever they were) unsustainable when it comes time for them to explain themselves to the market, they're likely to find a way to change things, whatever AT&T says.

However, if the first applications *do* somehow cause network disruption (or they portray them as the cause, Apple could decide to stick to the agreements and instead try to spike independent dev efforts.

Re:Network impact

[E IS mC(Square)]

this could provide a channel for showing (or not) that third party applications doesn't automatically mean disruption of the provider network.

If you can take a look around and see other PHONES with other SERVICE PROVIDERS, you may just find out that its already been shown, proven and people are using a lot of apps. Its just that the Apple + AT&T world is a little different.

Re:Network impact

[earache]

It doesn't float. Blackberry's and Treo's have tons of third party apps.

I think apple wasn't ready for it yet, meaning they didn't have a polished sdk to give to developers.

Re:Network impact

[Achromatic1978]

However, public justifications matter to companies that care about PR - and Apple does.

Even when it's common knowledge in all of the trade magazines and forums that'd even care about this feature that Apple's excuse (not justification) is absolute and utter bullshit?

Re:Network impact

[dave420]

The bullshit didn't come from AT&T but from Apple, btw.

Re:Network impact

[SimHacker]

Oh, come on now. Don't tell me that not only did you believe that big load of crap, but now you're hoping that people breaking into the iPhone and developing applications against Apple's will is going to convince Apple to change their mind???

Apple lied to you when they claimed they didn't want third parties to develop applications out of fears of taking down the network. You can already develop applications on PocketPC's, Blackberries, Java phones, Symbian phones, and many other devices, and the network has not gone down. Apple's claim that iPhones will bring down the network if they let people program them is a bald faced lie.

If you think Apple is going to change their policy because it turns out their lie was exposed by people developing third party apps, and the network not going down, you're delusional. Apple lied to you for their own reasons (to manipulate you), not for the reasons they're telling you (because they're nice and looking out for you). The reasons Apple lied about that should be obvious, and have been gone over in great detail in other postings, so I won't review them here. But it's extremely foolish to think Apple would forget that they were purposefully lying to you in order to manipulate you, and suddenly change their mind about third party developers out of the kindness of their hearts, after third party developers showed them the true light.

-Don

Re:Network impact

[dabraun]

Assuming Apple doesn't take steps in a subsequent update to actively disable third party applications, this could provide a channel for showing (or not) that third party applications doesn't automatically mean disruption of the provider network.

There is no way that 'network disruption' is the real reason for blocking 3rd party apps. There are plenty of windows mobile phones out there and they all allow the user to install whatever 3rd party apps they want. I don't know why Apple and/or AT&T wants to block 3rd party apps but the stability of their cell network is most definitely not the real issue.

telemarketers

[fangorious]

I think the best use of this app would be to 'cat /dev/random > /dev/dsp' when a telemarketer calls.

Re:telemarketers

[pjt33]

Not /dev/random. You want to wait for a pause in the incoming sound wave and play samples of voice saying things like "Do go on" and "Could you run that past me again?"

Re:telemarketers

[hawaiian717]

cat /etc/eula.txt | say

might be fun.

Re:telemarketers

[mrchaotica]

Cellphone, remember? Why would you want to lead on telemarketers when you pay by the minute?

Re:telemarketers

[Achromatic1978]

Because people in the civilised world don't pay for inbound calls?

Re:telemarketers

[jc42]

Because people in the civilised world don't pay for inbound calls?

But I'm in the US, you insensitive clod! (I spell "civilized" with a 'z'.)

Re:telemarketers

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't get charged 42 cents per minute to call a mobile or 50 cents per 30 seconds on a payphone like we do in Australia.

I think Israel has got one of the best systems for the type of market it is because the government did a good job there and regulated it with logic and stuck with the same logic the whole way. (Payphone users do not get ripped off; while I was there I would use the payphone to call Oz.)

Re:telemarketers

[novakreo]

You don't get charged 42 cents per minute to call a mobile or 50 cents per 30 seconds on a payphone like we do in Australia.

I think Israel has got one of the best systems for the type of market it is because the government did a good job there and regulated it with logic and stuck with the same logic the whole way. (Payphone users do not get ripped off; while I was there I would use the payphone to call Oz.) So why use a payphone, if they're such a bad deal? Virgin Mobile's prepaid Bean Counter plan is only 10c per minute, mobile to mobile. Pennytel is only 12.78c/minute, VoIP to mobile. There are alternatives out there.

Ultimate gaming platform?

[toleraen]

And finally, and most important, we can only hope that someone develops ScummVM and MAME, two game emulation platforms, soon. I want unlimited classic arcade games and Monkey Island in my iPhone. I hope all those classic games can be played with a single button...cause that's all you're getting.

Re:Ultimate gaming platform?

[CommunistHamster]

It's not called the "I WIN" button for nothing, you know...

Re:Ultimate gaming platform?

[Reason58]

I hope all those classic games can be played with a single button...cause that's all you're getting. Every SCUMM-based game uses the left mouse button only. As for the MAME stuff, that varies from game to game.

Re:Ultimate gaming platform?

[ruiner13]

They might be able to get games to work on it. They could make it so it plays in wide screen mode, placing a pseudo-control pad interface on the left and some button image on the right side. In the middle you'd have the gameplay area. The iPhone screen would be the controller. Program it so it automatically suspends the game when a call comes in, and resumes when it is over. That would be slick. Who wants to start making it? :)

Re:Ultimate gaming platform?

[Anonymous Coward]

ScummVM will play perfectly on iPhone. It's point-and-click.

The arcade emulation could use screen-controls. I won't for every game, but some will do just nice.

Re:Ultimate gaming platform?

[Anonymous Freak]

Well, Pac-Man doesn't need any buttons. Dig Dug needs one, Pole Position needs one (the shifter, you can do gas and brake with the Y-axis.)

Re:Ultimate gaming platform?

[Mia'cova]

I get that you're making a joke but I may as well for those who don't have one.. There are four buttons on the phone itself and another on the headphones. You've also got all the accessories and bluetooth. Depending how deep the hackers get in there, we might see something like the PS3 controller connecting to the phone. OSX can be made to support something like that. I'm still from the "just buy a psp/ds" camp but I still love creative hacks. Games are clearly not what I care about (compared to say, a skype client) but everyone likes to geek-out once in a while :)

PSPhone DS

[theolein]

I recently saw an ad for an embedded game developer.... by apple. Requiring many years of experience etc yadda yadda yadda.

Here's the apple game dev ad.

This speaks legions to me, and it says Apple is not only going to turn the iPhone into a a cool smartphone, but they will also start selling games with it. IT has enough horsepower and screen real estate to take on the PSP..... and the DS, with the multi touch interface.

If it works and sells, Sony is going to shit big square bricks, Steve Ballmer is single handedly going to cause a world chair shortage, and Nintendo is going to be most challenged. Anything you can do with the DS, you can do with the iPhone.

Most, most interesting.

Re:PSPhone DS

[Anonymous Coward]

Anything you can do with the DS, you can do with the iPhone.

I can think of something you can do with a DS that you can't do with an iPhone: Press PHYSICAL buttons. The DS has 8 buttons and a D pad. The PSP has a whole bunch of buttons (if you include the multimedia ones), a D pad AND an analog stick. You can't play most games without a few buttons to perform actions. How many buttons does the iPhone have? Oh yea, that's right...

Re:PSPhone DS

[huckamania]

That is going to be one busy developer. They are going to have to keep him stocked with snickers bars and jolt cola.

Re:PSPhone DS

[richy freeway]

Anything you can do with the DS, you can do with the iPhone.

Except play brain training, or nintendogs, or pokemon, or new super mario bros, or have it cost you (and I mean the average person who can't hack it, and even if you can it's still gonna cost you £250+) less than £100.

The iPhone is a flashy gadget, it's not a games console and it won't ever be.

Ever.

Re:PSPhone DS

[Klickoris]

I didn't believe you until you tacked on the extra 'never' at the end of your comment.

Re:PSPhone DS

[Anonymous Coward]

...infinite?

Re:PSPhone DS

[Von Helmet]

Anything you can do with the DS, you can do with the iPhone.

Apart from use a stylus. That's going to be quite a deal breaker, given that a lot of DS games require precise touches, which can't really be achieved with even the daintiest of fingertips. I don't think the whole touch thing is likely to work that well when you move from the few-pixels precision of the stylus on the DS to a big fat finger on the iPhone.

Re:PSPhone DS

[Anonymous Coward]

iMost interesting

Re:PSPhone DS

[Anonymous Coward]

Lol, I choked on my sandwich you bastard after reading that.

Re:PSPhone DS

[theazreal]

Anything you can do with the DS, you can do with the iPhone. Um, no. Especially not in Japan, where the DS is wildly popular with women. The DS has brand-name recognition as something trendy as well as something that plays games. Casual gamers are happy with the DS because "it doesn't seem difficult" to play with. http://www.wired.com/gaming/hardware/news/2007/05/ japan_games/ The iPhone won't be nearly so friendly.

Re:PSPhone DS

[Moofie]

Um, I'm trying to do up up down down left right left right ABAB select start, but I can't find any of those buttons.

Re:PSPhone DS

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, I think you're right.

Those other development studios won't stand a chances against the as-yet-to-be-determined developer.

Re:PSPhone DS

[nevali]

[q]I recently saw an ad for an embedded game developer.... by apple. Requiring many years of experience etc yadda yadda yadda.[/q]

Not particularly surprising: iPod games have existed since the last generation was released (not counting the iPhone), and we know from Jobs that the next-gen iPods will be more like the iPhone architecturally (running [not Mac] OS X). I'd imagine it's a whole heap cheaper to hire somebody with experience rather than license games if they want to distribute any with the device without bumping the price: given the number of iPods they shift, any royalties would be fairly immense.

Re:PSPhone DS

[MorpheousMarty]

I am not a Nintendo fanboy, however you don't seem to understand the full lack of challenge ANYONE has brought to the Nintendo on the portable front. I heard at the peak of the last console wars they still sold a Gameboy for every PS2, Gamecube and Xbox sold, and that Pokemon accounted for 50% of all video games sales. But even if that weren't true, it's pretty clear that the DS currently is the most successful console, by a wide margin. I doubt anything but the most concentrated effort could take on Nintendo.

However Mac does sell about 10 million iPods a quarter lately, far outstripping DS sales. I started out sure that you were crazy to think Apple could do something dangerous to Nintendo with iPhone/Pod... but given the numbers... anything could happen if they release a touch screen iPod.

Re:PSPhone DS

[Threni]

> If it works and sells, Sony is going to shit big square bricks, Steve Ballmer is single handedly going to cause a world chair shortage, and
> Nintendo is going to be most challenged. Anything you can do with the DS, you can do with the iPhone.

The other phone manufacturers have had something of a head start - presumably this is why they all have java and 3g support. Anything you can do with the iPhone you've been able to do with other phones for years now.

Re:PSPhone DS

[Anonymous Coward]

Shhhh...you'll invoke the wrath of the koolaid drinking Apple fanbois with that kind of comment! Besides, it knows which way you are holding it! That's...revolutionary!

Re:PSPhone DS

[tabby]

oh rly?

You are going to give an iPhone to your 12 year old to play Pokemon with?

Re:PSPhone DS

[jsebrech]

This speaks legions to me, and it says Apple is not only going to turn the iPhone into a a cool smartphone, but they will also start selling games with it. IT has enough horsepower and screen real estate to take on the PSP..... and the DS, with the multi touch interface.

Newsflash: they intend to follow the same model they followed with the iPod, namely to distribute a few games via the itms, and to not have any 3rd party development. Games are a gimmick on the iPod, and they'll be a gimmick on the iPhone. It's pretty clear that apple has zero intention for opening up the iPhone, and as a result the iPhone will sell well, but it won't be industry-changing.

Re:PSPhone DS

[dave420]

Apart from use a d-pad, A, B, X, Y, and shoulder buttons. And a stylus. So no, you can't do everything you can do on a DS on an iPhone. Not even close.

Re:PSPhone DS

[Xabraxas]

f it works and sells, Sony is going to shit big square bricks, Steve Ballmer is single handedly going to cause a world chair shortage, and Nintendo is going to be most challenged. Anything you can do with the DS, you can do with the iPhone.

You do realize that buying the iPhone is equivalent to buying a PS3 in terms of price. We all saw how well that went. How do you expect the iPhone, which is only offered by one carrier to compete with the PSP and the DS in terms of price, platform, and developers? All of you apple people are fucking crazy.

Re:PSPhone DS

[jc42]

I don't think the whole touch thing is likely to work that well when you move from the few-pixels precision of the stylus on the DS to a big fat finger on the iPhone.

Hmmm ... I do know a few people who keep a couple of fingernails filed to a point for use with their touch-sensitive PDA.

Also, if you go into any store that sells guitars, you can buy finger picks. The plastic ones would be easy to file to a point, if they're not already fine enough for your screen.

The limitation here is the resolution of the touch screen. Putting something on the end of your finger with a point diameter less than that is cheap and easy, and so low tech that just about anyone with a finger can do it.

Re:PSPhone DS

[sssssss27]

Yeah, the only company that could beat Nintendo in the portable market was Nintendo itself when it killed the Game Boy with the DS.

Re:PSPhone DS

[Breakfast Pants]

The iphone wouldn't work with a filed fingernail or a guitar pick; it uses a capacitive touch screen.

Re:PSPhone DS

[MorpheousMarty]

Ah, yes, I forgot about that. Still the DS is backwards compatible so it didn't really kill the Gameboy, anyone who made a GBA game could still rely on DS owners as a market.

Re:PSPhone DS

[bensch128]

Well, apple did try to push the games-on-iPod direction for awhile. That was slightly successful but the iPod simply doesn't have the horsepower to run a decent game. And I guess that people just didn't see the iPod as a useful gaming system.

Maybe it'll work better for the iPhone. And it'll be great to see game ideas that use multiple input (two fingers on the screen at a time) Can you say super-wack-a-mole?

cheers
Ben

Re:PSPhone DS

[LWATCDR]

An iPhone costs a lot more then a DS. It will not have the Nintendo library to draw from and I don't think they will have a development team that can matches Nintendo's anytime soon.
I think they are going to hurt Pop Cap not Nintendo...
I just don't think a $400+ cell phone with a minimal game library is going to beat the DS anytime soon. But it will still be a better cell phone than the DS.

problems with it ...

[EGSonikku]

running a legitatly activated iPhone 1.0.1. Used jailbreak and iphoneinterface to copy Terminal.app into /Applications. After rebooting the terminal app shows on the main screen, but when launched it only loads the background and crashes to the main screen after about 40 seconds...any ideas?

Re:problems with it ...

[Space cowboy]

You've almost certainly not set the application file within the Terminal.app bundle to be executable once it's been transferred. Just like FTP, iphoneinterface always sets permissions to rw-r--r--

Simon

Re:problems with it ...

[EGSonikku]

thanks!

Re:problems with it ...

[EGSonikku]

C:\phonedmg>ssh -l root 192.168.1.100
The authenticity of host '192.168.1.100 (192.168.1.100)' can't be established.
RSA key fingerprint is ee:1b:b0:3d:7a:a8:38:04:ae:56:6e:a1:41:d2:69:73.
Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no)? y
Please type 'yes' or 'no': yes
Warning: Permanently added '192.168.1.100' (RSA) to the list of known hosts.
root@192.168.1.100's password:
-sh-3.2# chmod -x /Applications/Terminal.app
-sh: /bin/chmod: Permission denied
-sh-3.2# chmod -x /Applications/Terminal.app/Terminal
-sh: /bin/chmod: Permission denied

Any idea's?

Re:problems with it ...

[EGSonikku]

Also:

C:\Documents and Settings\Robert\Desktop\Terminalr73>scp -rp Terminal.app root@1
92.168.1.100:/Applications/
root@192.168.1.100's password:
sh: scp: command not found
lost connection

C:\Documents and Settings\Robert\Desktop\Terminalr73>

Re:problems with it ...

[nine-times]

Well there's my problem. I want this (specifically, I want to be able to have a SSH client on my iPhone), but i don't want to fuck around with my iPhone. First, I'm not the sort of guy who gets joy out of fucking around with a device getting it to do things it's not supposed to do, and second I'm nervous about somehow bricking my phone.

So can someone come up with a simple installer or something? Is that not possible for some reason?

better than a communicator

[Anonymous Coward]

nokia with an ssh client, better up, a phone capable of running a terminal application from where I can move around files in my phone and start up my ssh client. This actually made the phone interesting.

m10

Whoa there boy...

[GarfBond]

Let's not make too many big leaps of logic...

Second, if Google Code is hosting this it probably means either that 1) Apple is giving the nod to this kind of development, 2) they are going to release an SDK or 3) Apple will realize the need for people to access the iPhone as a development platform to do really cool stuff with it. All three options are good for me.

Or, maybe it's anyone can create a project there.

1 and 2 are ridiculous claims based off of this information, and I'm pretty sure they were already aware of #3 based off of the grumbling developers and blogs after WWDC.

Re:Whoa there boy...

[nutshell42]

Apple fanboys are like people in an abusive relationship, they will interpret everything as a sign that Steve still does love them even while he's beating them with a belt (but it's not His fault! Of course, He's angry! If only they'd bought new Macs every 2 years like Windows users...)

Oh don't you love the smell of burnt karma in the morning =)

Re:Whoa there boy...

[nine-times]

I agree. At most, we might assume that the fact there hasn't been some "cease and desist" letter sent asking for the project to be taken down means that Apple won't do much to prevent hacking the iPhone. Of course, they still might do what they do when people hack iTunes's DRM: they release an update to prevent known hacks.

Don't get me wrong, I really hope that Apple changes their mind and opens the device for 3rd party development, and I think it's possible they still might. However, I don't think we've seen any sign of this yet.

"Hear Hear!"

[mpapet]

Can't recommend the nokia 9300 enough.

Re:Why can't we build stuff instead of prying apar

[nerdguy0]

Why can't you have both? I hate to be the break it to you but the iPhone is a much better platform hardware wise than the FIC phone that is being sold to developers right now (minus the GPS of course, but even that uses a binary blob currently).
Openmoko is supposed to be an open-source platform, that will run on multiple phones. Being able to run code on the iPhone is the first step in getting an open platform like Openmoko out there. So don't discourage others from doing what they like. It's their choice, and they have something to bring to the table as well.

Re:Well Done

[Anonymous Coward]

You know, it might just so happen that Apple has bigger plans for the iPhone and its SDK than lesser minds can imagine. Time will tell.

Re:Why can't we build stuff instead of prying apar

[hedwards]

Why can't you have both? I hate to be the break it to you but the iPhone is a much better platform hardware wise than the FIC phone that is being sold to developers right now (minus the GPS of course, but even that uses a binary blob currently). That will always be binary. At least around here things are moving towards mandatory e911 service, and having an easy to hack GPS subsystem would make it somewhat difficult to ensure that the location is accurately reported.

Being able to run code on the iPhone is the first step in getting an open platform like Openmoko out there. So don't discourage others from doing what they like. It's their choice, and they have something to bring to the table as well. Well, we'll see how well this works out. It still seems odd to go with an iPhone when apple could have created a newer and much improved Newton. A Newton that worked well, with current technology would have been a real success. I mean if the marginal iPod is able to sell the kind of units it does, imagine what a well designed product could sell. I genuinely wonder how much longer a product that is sold by virtue of being "different" can possibly remain the dominant product before people realize that it isn't a rebellious thing to be amongst the masses.

The iPhone has an SDK

[Anonymous Coward]

It's called HTML+CSS+JS.

I don't care for the iPhone, myself -- another closed proprietary system? I'll wait for OpenMoko.

But you kind of have to give them credit for one thing. If they had released an iPhone-only SDK, you'd see iPhone-only apps. By not releasing any SDK, and by releasing a real web browser for it, people are writing web apps designed for mobile devices. Which means they're not really tied to the iPhone.

I think that's kind of cool, actually.

Re:The iPhone has an SDK

[Anonymous Coward]

people are writing web apps designed for mobile devices ... I think that's kind of cool, actually.

AT&T thinks its kind of cool too, in the you-must-have-a-data-plan-and-pay-us-every-month kind of way...

Re:The iPhone has an SDK

[dave420]

That's not an SDK. Those applications don't use the iPhone, they use whatever web server they're hosted on. It's a bit of a cop-out to say they're applications that run on the iPhone. As we've seen from Google's web-based "applications", they leave a lot to be desired when compared to actual software running on the hardware in your hands Web apps have their uses, don't get me wrong, but they're only a sub-set of useful applications. And it's not as if we even got a decent explanation as to why custom native apps aren't allowed on the iPhone, either. If web-based applications are so useful, why does OS X ship with anything more than Safari?

Re:The iPhone has an SDK

[gig]

There is no way I'm going to run any third party code on my iPhone except in the Web 2.0 browser. The very small upside of native code doesn't outweigh the tiresome I-T work and the privacy concerns. Also iTunes is my iPhone I-T, what is on the phone is just a cache, even the OS X is like a cache of Mac OS X. If Apple makes an easy way to choose some extra apps then maybe.

Besides, the iPhone is not empty, it has my music and movies and mail and photos and contacts and bookmarks and they are all useful. Having the entire Web in there really dampens the enthusiasm for installing apps, the phone has an always-on wireless Web connection with no metering. The iPhone is much more of a menu to other things than a box you run software on. It's all interface, the phone itself has an Ajax philosophy.

Calls and mail and Web 2.0 are the three primary things for a smart phone. Native apps is not even 4th. I would put PDF, Podcasts, music, movies, photos next before native apps. That gives you access to information, the complete range of stuff. Information at your finger tips..

Other mobiles do not even have Web 1.0 so WTF are they doing trying to have native apps? It's like they think the Web is a fad. And their interfaces are simply out of 1994 as well. First be a good phone then maybe try to be a good computer.

Re:The iPhone has an SDK

[dave420]

You're not everyone. Many, many folks want to run their own choice of applications on their phone. Having unmetered internet access, and not being able to use it for anything other than surfing the web and email (which is just one portion of the internet) seems like one hell of a waste. If what you said was true, then other companies would have been down that route a long time ago. As it is, they saw the benefit of allowing users to run whatever they wanted on their phone, be it a whole host of applications or just the ones that came with the phone, as everyone's different. Wouldn't you want a VoIP client on your phone, so you can make free calls? An SSH client? Games? No?

Most phones have internet access. I had web access on my phone I got back in 2003. It's nothing new. Most phone manufacturers know the web isn't a fad, and most know that web 2.0 is a meaningless buzz-word to describe some ambiguous functionality that's an old part of the X/HTML specifications. Heck, most phones have 3G, which is faster than the iPhone - by your logic, Apple thinks the web is a fad, as they didn't add 3G or even 3.5G.

What does it do?

[Animats]

MobileTerminal.app is NOT an SSH client, nor Telnet for that matter. It can however be used to execute a console ssh-client application."

What does it connect to as a terminal? Does the iPhone have a serial port? Or is it a console window for the iPhone's operating system?

Re:What does it do?

[SanityInAnarchy]

Well, it's called MobileTerminal.app, and the iPhone runs a Darwin kernel. So, just guessing, but it would seem to be a mobile version of Terminal.app on normal OS X.

Meaning, it's "a console window for the iPhone's operating system", yes.

Which also means that if the iPhone had a serial port, you could talk to that with MobileTerminal. Or if you want SSH or Telnet, those clients will run in MobileTerminal.

Re:What does it do?

[adrianmonk]

What does it connect to as a terminal?

Hopefully, a stream. I have no real idea why it should matter what it's connecting to. That's a separate issue from what it does, which is emulate a terminal, and I don't know why it would make sense for the two things to be intertwined.

That's not to say it doesn't happen in some cases. There are plenty of apps for Windows and so on that are a combination of a telnet client and/or ssh client with a terminal emulator. But there's no reason these components have to be combined into on piece of software.

Re:What does it do?

[mrchaotica]

Or is it a console window for the iPhone's operating system?

On OS X, "Console.app" is what's used to display log messages. "Terminal.app" is used to interact with the text shell. That's why this app is named MobileTerminal instead of MobileConsole.

OpenJokeo astroturfing in EVERY IPHONE ARTICLE

[Anonymous Coward]

Cut it the fuck out, you spamming assholes.

Google's offering.

[delire]

I wonder if Google will give us a shell on their new Linux phone.

That said it'll be hard for them to beat the Phase 2 OpenMoko for developer fun.

sweet!

[SolusSD]

Now all it needs is a bluetooth external keyboard and i can sysadmin from anywhere! :)

If Apple and AT&T OK this, it's great.

[argent]

If Apple and AT&T OK this (and having it show up in Google Code is no evidence of that) that's great. It means a native SDK and the iPhone will become a real smartphone.

If not, it's going to be an arms race between the wily hackers (in the good sense) wedging apps into the beast, and AT&T detecting them and disabling user's accounts for quote-hacking-unquote (in the media sense).

Re:If Apple and AT&T OK this, it's great.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hooray for wily intruders.

Piersen v. Post, 3 Cai. R. 175 (N.Y. 1805)

Re:If Apple and AT&T OK this, it's great.

[argent]

I'm not sure how Pierson v. Post applies here.

Functional

[SuperKendall]

Tell me again why this is a revolution? The iPhone is a pretty cool toy

No, the iPhone is a really functional device that sucks a lot less than so many other phones, and fans of dynamic symbolic UI finally have a device that doesn't wimp out in presenting us with a virtual interface. Plus the screen DPI is so high it actually makes reading really small text practical so the screen is much more usable than you would think only from looking at the size in specs.

Furthermore it's also a device with a huge amount of potential, in part from Apple but also in part from hacking. And as we have seen with the Apple TV and other devices, Apple devices are generally hackable and Apple doesn't push back the way Sony or Nintendo or Microsoft do.

I don't quite know if revolution is the right word either, but it sure is a breath of fresh air in a world that until now has been a fetid swamp.

Re:Functional

[that this is not und]

Apple devices are generally hackable

I still can't boot NetBSD on my SE/30 without first booting MacOS and running the MacOS based booter.... It does have a nice 'goodbye' message that pops up on the screen before kissing off the MacOS and loading a real OS, though...

Re:Functional

[mrchaotica]

Yeah, well they fixed that in newer Macs (and by "newer" I mean in the early 90's with OpenFirmware, not 2006 with the Intel switch).

Re:Functional

[SuperKendall]

You don't consider the fact you CAN run NetBSD on the SE/30 an indication of hackability, even on hardware older than most people who read Slashdot?

Re:Functional

[Phroggy]

Yeah, well they fixed that in newer Macs (and by "newer" I mean in the early 90's with OpenFirmware, not 2006 with the Intel switch). *ahem* First of all, I wouldn't call 1995 "early 90s" (the PowerMac 6200 was the first Mac to ship with OpenFirmware, and was introduced in May of that year). Secondly, I wouldn't call the problem "fixed" on Old World Macs - it wasn't until the release of the iMac in August 1998 that it became simple and easy to boot operating systems other than Mac OS.

Re:Functional

[that this is not und]

NetBSD can only run on an SE/30 In Spite Of the design efforts of Apple.

The bootup sequence should be documented somewhere, and Apple should disclose it. Why won't Apple release the 'hooks' for native booting? Are they worried about loosing their OS market share on the SE/30?

Granted, it's most likely that nobody at Apple would remember how, trade secret or not.

You're right that the SE/30 is actually one of the most hackable early Apple machines. Definitely the king of the compact Macs. Most of the compact Macs aren't internally as well made as the SE/30. The earlier analog boards are actually almost scary. The SE comes in a close second, though. None of the compact Macs newer than the SE/30 are even worth considering. They have painful hardware-limits for memory. If you can track down 16M 30-pin simms, you can put 128M in an SE/30.

Beg to differ

[SuperKendall]

Nobody cares about the iPhone as a platform either....
With no official SDK who is going to make applications for it?

Well all these people care enough about it as a platform to write what apps they can using the browser as SDK.

One of them in particular, is Popcap with the well known game bejewled.

Now you might say, that doesn't count because it's "just" a browser based app. But all of the applications listed there have been tailored to fit and work well on the iPhone. Most of the even use fragments of custom CSS that helps define the appearance for the iPhone specifically. If it's tailored to the platform, then how is using the browser as a GUI library really that much different than a true native app as far as the intent of the developer, and interaction by the user? There are even proof of concept web-based apps that detect phone rotation and respond accordingly...

Sure native apps would have a wider range of capability, but again that's a function of the scope of the API that is available at the moment more than anything. These people are all developing apps and some will be chafed by those limitations, and seek a more advanced API - as we have seen with the Terminal project.

The funny thing as far as I am concerned, is the people most clamoring for applications are in fact the ones that will likely see applications first, SDK or no SDK - as evidenced by the first third party app being Terminal. Really the wider audience can live without third party apps for a while.

Re:Beg to differ

[Achromatic1978]

Now you might say, that doesn't count because it's "just" a browser based app. But all of the applications listed there have been tailored to fit and work well on the iPhone. Most of the even use fragments of custom CSS that helps define the appearance for the iPhone specifically. If it's tailored to the platform, then how is using the browser as a GUI library really that much different than a true native app as far as the intent of the developer, and interaction by the user? There are even proof of concept web-based apps that detect phone rotation and respond accordingly...

It's fantastic. For years, I've heard Mac fans (amongst others, sure) moan loudly about web standards. Browser independence. Railing against websites that discriminate against Safari. That are "best viewed in IE".

Now, there's the iPhone. And suddenly coding HTML and CSS to meet the needs of one device / browser combination is apparently A-ok, because it's their device. I see.

Re:Why can't we build stuff instead of prying apar

[SuperKendall]

Well, we'll see how well this works out. It still seems odd to go with an iPhone when apple could have created a newer and much improved Newton.

I don't think there are many people, newton fans included, who really think that is odd at all.

I mean if the marginal iPod is able to sell the kind of units it does, imagine what a well designed product could sell.

If I might present a different observation, perhaps something that sells as many units as the iPhone is in fact well-designed?

I genuinely wonder how much longer a product that is sold by virtue of being "different" can possibly remain the dominant product before people realize that it isn't a rebellious thing to be amongst the masses.

Pretty long considering none of the several people I know who have bought an iPhone did so to be fashinable or unique. I do not seek to display it, I seek to use it. I don't care if I am one of many or one of few.

Different is the virtue that sells the iPod, but you are confusing "different from all my past crappy cell-phones/smartphones" to "I am different than anyone just because of a purchase".

HEY GUYS WE'RE FIRST!!!!!

[fat_mike]

So other than putting an icon on the screen, you could hook it to a Mac and run commands? Can't I do that with my keyboard?

"Slashdot, we're the Weekly World News of Technology"

You know they're giving each other high fives for being on this website, right? Except for the guy in the first picture, he's probably in the bathroom with his iPhone on vibrate and taped to his balls.

Re:HEY GUYS WE'RE FIRST!!!!!

[ajlitt]

You must've eaten a few thermometers as a kid. Am I right?

Have to be kidding me

[poofyhairguy82]

Anything you can do with the DS, you can do with the iPhone.

Except play third party games and first party Nintendo games. Even the biggest Apple fanboy can't truly believe that the "magic" Apple can become a better game developer than Nintendo overnight. Or that ANY "console" can thrive on first party games alone (the Gamecube tried)...

Let me break you off a clue: The DS is not successful for what it can do, it is successful for what it does and what it costs. If potential alone sold consoles, than the PSP and the PS3 would rule their markets (rather than being in last place in either). No, all that willl happen is that Apple will release a few puzzle games that only a few Apple nuts will declare to be gaming masterpieces while the rest of us are having fun playing wifi Mariokart on a device meant for that purpose.

Cajones=

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple+iPhone

Re:other smart phones have been there for years

[stewbacca]

You'll be eating those words in 5 years, just like those 5-year old anti-iPod words you are eating now.

Re:other smart phones have been there for years

[Microlith]

Seems to me they said iPhone, not smartphone.

Smartass dickwad.

Of course you could always enjoy that WindowsCE development, as shitty and convoluted as it is.

What?

[amake]

Nobody cares about the iPhone as a platform either.

Then why are people bending over backwards to make apps for it?

If OpenMoko's so great, how come we're not hearing about all the great apps supposedly being made for it?

Re:What?

[DaleGlass]

Because it's cool and geeky to hack a piece of hardware that's made to make it difficult. It's a challenge. Like with the XBox.

Now, how many normal people actually run Linux or something that's not games on one of those? I would guess that these markets have relatively few overlaps. People who buy an XBox to run Linux on it are geeks knowing that MS underpriced hardware and want to take advantage of that. They're FAR from normal users. I'm a geek, and I don't have use for such things, as the effort to get something to run would far outweight the cost of paying a bit more for say, a mini-ITX board. This is a TINY market.

For any sort of "revolution" to happen you need something like a PC: Standard, open hardware anybody can write something for. Otherwise only the very small percentage of people willing to jump through hoops will actually do something with it. People also need to know that they can install something on it, or nobody will use your creations.

IMO, people who want to develop for a mobile platform won't be messing with an iPod, they'll be making applications for Treo, Blackberry, OpenMoko, Zaurus, Windows CE based platforms, etc. There's no lack of these.

Now, if what you really want to do is to crack a piece of hardware and work around its restrictions, then yeah, the iPhone works nicely. But it's not going to be any sort of revolution, because very few people will ever find about it, and fewer still will give a damn.

Re:other smart phones have been there for years

[timmarhy]

right, because windows CE development is more convoluted then your iphone, which you had to CRACK? grow a brain, not everything apple is good.

Re:other smart phones have been there for years

[that this is not und]

Who is eating what words, and why? I just got another iPod last weekend at Frys. This one is an RCA brand unit. It has 1GB of built in flash, and a SD card socket. It also cost all of $19.99 and that wasn't a sale price.

The term 'iPod' is now generic to the general public. And some iPods are more open than others. Mine is pretty open, because it doesn't require any particular special app to load the mp3 files. Copy 'em into folders on the drives that are mounted when you plug it in like any other USB drive, and there they sit, and are navagable with a song browser. It'll play .mp3, .wav, and (supposedly, haven't tried it) .wma files.

I'm glad I haven't spent an excessive amount of money on an Apple branded iPod.

Re:Why can't we build stuff instead of prying apar

[that this is not und]

about your tagline:

'If there were no Microsoft, it would be necessary for Apple to invent one.'

Because Apple needs there to be a big world out there beyond the curtained entryway of their boutique.

Re:Why can't we build stuff instead of prying apar

[tm2b]

I don't think there are many people, newton fans included, who really think that is odd at all.

Indeed. I'm a Newton Fan (MP130, MP2k, eMate 300) and anybody who thinks that this is odd must be totally ignorant of Steve Politics - the Newton was not Invented Under Steve, and thus must be discarded.

I do wish that the iPhone were half as useful an organizer as the MP130, but it's not - because Steve wanted a lifestyle device and what Steve wants, Steve gets. But as bitter as I may sound here, Steve is right about product definition more often than he is wrong (CD-Rs, anybody?), enough to propel AAPL stock from $14 to $130 and thus buy me a new house - so I can't complain too much.

For whatever reason, Steve's decided that the iPhone must be a "fun and family" lifestyle device without any product definition cloudiness from pesky productivity - and the iPhone does a goddamned fine job of being that lifestyle device, except when your AJAX Sudoku has to hit the web through molasses (EDGE) just to update the UI with a single fucking digit. Still, I'm hoping that he'll let the iPhone open up and be more than a lifestyle device sooner rather than later.

By the way, the eMate 300 made a kick-ass portable serial terminal for machine rooms.

Distinction

[SuperKendall]

It's fantastic. For years, I've heard Mac fans (amongst others, sure) moan loudly about web standards. Browser independence. Railing against websites that discriminate against Safari. That are "best viewed in IE".

Now, there's the iPhone. And suddenly coding HTML and CSS to meet the needs of one device / browser combination is apparently A-ok, because it's their device. I see.

No. No you do not.

Web-based applications, are a totally seperate beast than iPhone specific applications, and we must be very clear to keep them distinct EVEN THOUGH they make use of the same underlying mechanisms.

I am still all for general design that works across all browsers. And indeed the iPhone browser makes such a goal a reality, because you have a reasonably sized viewport for viewing real web pages that don't have to conform to "mobile" standards. I cringe and wax poetic against those who would detect the iPhone browser string and have a web page display differently just because they have the temetry to imagine I want my web page simplified and dumbed down for my "mobile" device.

An iPhone application now, is not meant to be used on other browsers or even other devices. It is generally written to realize that a finger will be manipulating the screen, the actual screen size will be just so during normal operation, and is tailored also to try and match with iPhone asthetics. Bejewled is a great example, since it is eminently tailored to the iPhone screen and works quite well. Also as I said the test application that detected rotation of the screen, for when would that make sense to detect on any other browser? But for a Javascript/CSS based application targeted for the iPhone, there is real value in understanding that has happened and acting on it.

Again these are two seperate worlds, do not attempt to confuse or cross them for they have different goals! And for web designers, please as I said test your app on Safari but do nothing special when you see an iPhone - I want to see the real web page thanks!

The Real Question is

[Anonymous Coward]

i-emacs or i-Vi

Re:other smart phones have been there for years

[dreamchaser]

You are wasting your time. The battle for objectivity on Slashot with regards to Apple is LONG over. It isn't going to change either.

not THAT revolutionary

[krayfx]

given the time of the release, virtually every other major phone manufacturer has had smart phone/ multimedia phone, which .. either needed backward compatibility with their previous model (software/ platform), or were stuck with technology and cost of components (low res screen, expensive RAM, blooding of these fancy devices). Apple iPhone arrived at the perfect time when they had success with ipod (their name legendary with handheld multimedia gadget - ipod video + audio + clickwheel); virtually, the first access to NAND ram than any other company; previous experience with newton, and most importantly, they had so many failed aspects of various devices to study!!! a wealth of data.

...they were perfectly placed to do it.

that they actually, went ahead and created this phone is cool. thats another thing is associated with apple... 'cool'. make that iCool.

For $350 MORE i would HOPE so!

[mrnick]

When you take a step back into reality and notice that you can buy a full blown laptop from dell for less than what you can buy an iPhone it comes into focus what a big mistake Apple has made with this product.

So now they are actually showing that it IS in fact possible to develop full blown applications on this just makes everyone that has been screaming about the lack of a SDK gasp in disgust.

It's obvious that it's not a technical issue they just don't want the common person to be able to develop applications for the iPhone. They say it is because it's a smart phone and not a PDA but since it has more memory, processing power, connectivity, display, and input than my current Cingular 8125 PDA / phone by 100 fold that logic trail just doesn't hold water.

I love Apple and happily dumped my Windows desktop, laptop, etc for Apple and OS X. I am a total convert. I was a Mac bigot. Mainly because of the lack of a CLI but being a die hard UNIX user bash won me over heart and soul.

But, I'll keep my 8125 with WM5 (Windows Mobile 5) that I can install free, or low cost, applications on, or develop my own applications using several programming languages (LabView being my favorite).

People that are buying an iPhone these days must have money to blow without doing any practical research into what they are buying. It's locked down to AT&T (formerly Cingular), even though you get no discounts for committing to AT&T. Apple is only going to let select 3rd party developers write full blown applications that I am sure comes with tight strings and hefty licensing fees that will be passed onto the consumer. And no, I don't buy into that crap about Safari being an application platform. First of all if I had this phone this first thing I would want to do is to install Firefox to replace Safari. I use OS X everyday and I played with Safari long enough to know that it was even a worse browser than Internet Explorer; Yeah it's that bad.

Add to that the whole no warranty bonus and see how you feel about your $500 brick after the newness wears off and you start treating it like exactly what it is, a phone, and drop it on the kitchen floor and the parking lot a few times. I know many people that purchased the extended warranty on their iPod nano and are without music for 3 to 4 months of the year waiting for Apple to send them a new unit. That might be acceptable for an MP3 player being that music is not a necessity but now they have turned their MP3 player into a phone and made it were one cannot go a day without it.

I have never wanted for a product to fail more than this piece of crap in my life. I love Apple but this high dollar toy is a joke. The only thing I find more ignorant than this phone is the dumb asses buying it.

The only thing I think that would make me change my mind would be if they released a full public SDK for XCODE on OS X, removed the restrictions on rebates (so you could pick one up for $150 with a 2 year contract), and Steve Jobs publicly apologized for complete misunderstanding of the market.

I threw that last one in there because it has about as much chance of happening as the other 2.

One last note, did you know that if I liked the iPhone interface there are many sites that have skins and dialers available to run on my WM5 device that would make it behave identical to Apple's new Newton?

Steve, let's get real here! You have enough money why not buy yourself a CLUE?

Nick Powers

Will Apple Close the Holes?

[Anonymous Coward]

The defining moment (of sorts) will be if Apple patches to close any holes, or installs updated software that will prevent this sort of thing in the future.

They recently released a software patch for the iPhone, available only via iTunes. I wonder what it "fixes".

webserver

[GregNorc]

So can I use it to reboot my web server now?!

Ask and ye shall receive

[StarKruzr]

I have it on good authority that a package manager is already being worked on. It will probably be a port of ipkg.

Re:Ask and ye shall receive

[DaleGlass]

Ok, and how do you install that package manager?

My point there is that as long as the initial setup consists of arcane incantations, it'll remain too unfriendly for most people to even try to use it. Sure, once you get Linux into an XBox you can apt-get software, but how do you get it there in the first place? To my knowledge (don't have an XBox) getting Linux there involves things like modchips and exploiting saved games, and that is the problem.

My point, again, is that there's not going to be any sort of revolution. The iPhone is exactly the wrong sort of thing that'd be needed for one to happen. The WRT54G access point was a "revolution". It's easy to play with it, and even normal people can benefit from the vastly improved feature set of alternate firmare. But the iPhone? It'll be even less of a revolution than Linux on the XBox where there's at least the angle of that the hardware is actually a PC and underpriced.

Re: Revolution Evolution Tools and Cool

[pemade]

That's what I have been interested in. Nokia has a Unix box (as I have heard. not yet having seen and held one) a beautiful screen, just larger than the A-Phone, err IPhone, and with Gigwise memory cards, camera, voice, ability to take an external keyboard via Bluetooth.

It's the Nokia N800, which has the Linux that the 770 does not, has the memory that the 770 does not, and is due to have Skype this summer.

As well as wireless, it can use Bluetooth to picl up the internet through your already owned, smaller more flexible dedicated phone. The advantage to me is flexibility. By using Linux Nokia has allied itself with the opensource community from the getgo.

I have only guesses as to why this wonderful device is off the radar of "most folks". One guess is the mammoth advertising budget of Apple. And this came out first. I find it very attractive. But then I remember the Psion and see how wonders can get dropped off from the community consciousness.

I'm looking for comments that compare the two, the Apple and the Nokia. I have heard complainta about the IPhone's lacks as an IPod, but this week sat in both levels of the IPhone class at the AppleStore and it is certainly cool.

Sing the Open Firmware Song

[SimHacker]

Open Firmware is the only firmware standard in existence to have its own song. Download or listen to Mitch Bradley singing the Open Firmware Song (278k).

So why can't I halt the iPhone into the OpenFirmware boot ROMs and hack around with the device registers in Forth? Maybe there's a way to hack OpenFirmware to use a $0.99 iTunes song instead of a $6.99 ring tone.

-Don

Re:Sing the Open Firmware Song

[mrchaotica]

So why can't I halt the iPhone into the OpenFirmware boot ROMs and hack around with the device registers in Forth?

Because the iPhone isn't a Mac, and doesn't use OpenFirmware (or EFI, for that matter, probably). It's too bad; it'd be nice if it did.

You say you want a revolution?

[StarKruzr]

It's coming, ph34r not. iphuc is already much easier to use than the first versions of iPhoneInterface. Pretty soon it will be as simple as pressing one button to enable 3rd party apps, install the package manager, and even re-skin the UI.

Multi-touch?

[Anonymous Coward]

The iPhone: capable of providing simultaneous keystrokes via an on-screen keyboard. So, iEmacs, if you had ten styluses (stilii?) and the dexterity of a pin-dancing angel on crystal meth. Or if you aren't lame, eVi of course. ;-)