iPhone 1.1.3 Update Confirmed, Breaks Apps and Unlocks

An anonymous reader writes "Gizmodo has gathered conclusive evidence which confirms that the iPhone Firmware 1.1.3 update is 100% real. It installs only from iTunes using the obligatory Apple private encryption key, which nobody has. The list of new features, like GPS-like triangulation positioning in Google Maps, has been confirmed too. Apparently it will be coming out next week, but there's bad news as expected: it breaks the unlocks, patches the previous vulnerabilities used by hackers and takes away all your third-party applications."

Comments

3rd party

[larry bagina]

The iPhone SDK will probably be released at Macworld (January 14-18).

Bah

[MistaE]

Why does every one insist on giving the same old tired arguments every time an update comes out? Doesn't anyone remember that an SDK is coming out in a month (or less?) Everyone will be able to get their crappy Notepad++++ programs that way as well, and with Apple's approval no less.

The issue with the unlocking is a different however. But, until the US people stand up and actually say that they want universal unlocking for all phones e.t.c. exclusive deals like the iPhone will continue. (Speaking of which, there have been exclusive phones in the past, and there will be more in the future, why is the iPhone always singled out for this?

Re:Wake up Apple!

[Osty]

Dear Steve Jobs, I will *never* buy a iphone if you keep pulling this BS. (along with the fact that you are tied into AT&T) Stop behaving like MS, or I'll just build another PC next year vs purchasing a iMac.. and of course, install linux on the PC.

Funny. Microsoft allows complete and open access to their Windows Mobile OS (whether or not you can load your apps onto the phone is left to the decision of the carriers). In fact they even opened the source for the OS (okay, it's a Shared Source license, and it requires having an officially licensed version of Windows Embedded CE 6.0, but the source code is all there if you want to modify it while building a new device of your own). I think this is a case where you want Apple to act more like Microsoft rather than less.

On the other hand, I'm an iPhone user. I spent a fair amount of time playing with Windows CE in the past, and while I like the system I was not a fan of any of the current phones using it today. So I bought an iPhone, and I like it. The current lack of an SDK isn't slowing me down, since I probably wouldn't write any iPhone apps anyway (as much as I'd like to think I would, I know that I'd just dabble a bit and never actually finish anything). Sure, there are some things that are missing (GPS, full Exchange connectivity, an IM app), but I can live without those at least for now.

Re:The cryPhone

[oman_]

Apple wants to SELL the applications. If any coder can spend a weekend working up a decent solitaire game then that means they won't be able to charge $5 (or whatever) for their solitaire game on iTunes. The cell phone market has ALWAYS been about nickel and diming the customer to death. Charging for text messages?

The movement to provide on-demand services is NOT about improving life for the customer. It has ALWAYS been about improving revenue. Getting more for less.

and anyway...

I own a hacked iPhone with the 1.1.2 firmware with about 15 third-party applications on it. This thing is by far the most useful consumer electronics device I've ever owned (besides my pc of course). I don't have to upgrade to 1.1.3 and it is still useful to me. When it's cracked I'll upgrade.... but either way it's still a win/win for me.

Why no J2ME

[SuperKendall]

Okay, I hate the fact that the iPhone didn't come out with an SDK at launch, and the fact that there's an existing playform for building phone apps (Java ME) that they completely ignored,

I have been doing Java stuff for a long time. And I've even done a few small things in J2ME in the past.

But if you think about it, there's a good reason the iPhone doesn't have J2ME - it's not M. That is, nothing about the iPhone is anything like the reference J2ME platform, and it's really not a "Micro" kind of platform in the traditional sense of the word. But there's also no good Java GUI API to an all touch input device either, so you combine that with Java processor and memory requirements and it's really not a good fit for the iPhone, at least right now.

Now that XCode/ObjC has garbage collection, there's really no good reason a Java developer couldn't move over to Objective C if they really want to develop something for the platform.

When the API is finally released, we probably will see someone release a J2ME emulator for the iPhone which would be kind of interesting. But I think it would be some work to put that together.