IPhone 3G Jailbreak Released, Paves Way For Open Source Apps

PainMeds writes "iPhone Atlas is reporting that the first jailbreak for the iPhone 3G has been released, and includes the popular Cydia community installer for distributing free games and applications. Since Apple's SDK was released, web sites have criticized Apple for the restrictions placed on both what developers could write and what APIs they were allowed to use. Others have noted the SDK's incompatibility with the GPL. The Cydia installer has provided a distribution channel for both open source software and software that would otherwise be impossible to build using the restricted SDK. A few applications are already out, including MobileTerminal and NES.app, a Nintendo game console emulator. In just over a week, open development is finally here for the iPhone 3G!"

Comments

Re:so

[neonmonk]

Because OpenMoko looks like the iPhone's ugly cousin from Kentucky? How about the fact that the iPhone already has numerous apps and a lot of momentum in app development? How about the fact that the standard software on the iPhone is much more polished than anything the OpenMoko will produce?

I'm more interested in Android and very interested in what platforms may support it. (You know if, if it gets out of Beta(tm) stage)

Re:so

[neonmonk]

Flamebait? By pointing out the OpenMoko's obvious downsides to the iPhone? Are you kidding me? The overzealous sensitive mods are out in force!

Don't get me wrong, I love the idea of the OpenMoko, but the execution is poor considering the considerable competition. People are developing plenty of apps for the iPhone because it is popular and it does have a very polished user interface. The iPhone has staying power. The OpenMoko? Not so much.

Re:Don't buy it

[D'Sphitz]

Because they can. Isn't that like the official motto of geeks everywhere?

Re:Don't buy it

[neonmonk]

Even without it being, it jailbroken, it is an enjoyable phone to use. Much more so than any Nokia / Samsung / Sony-Ericsson I've had over the years. And compared to WinCE it's a godsend, a Start menu on a phone? Seriously? Maybe the Blackberry is more functional... However I think that UI and aesthetics are a large part of functionality. The touch keyboard interface is good enough to write emails and I find it just as easy to use as a tinny qwerty keyboard.

At the end of the day I would have an iPhone regardless of whether I could jailbreak it or not. I've had some expensive phones in my time and this is the only one I've actually ever played with.

It's a well designed piece of hardware and I hope it spurs other companies and perhaps the next rethink of the OpenMoko into developing something better.

Re:Don't buy it

[Free the Cowards]

The reasoning is not very difficult:

1) I like the hardware

2) I don't like the software

If the cost of fixing 2 is less than the value of 1, then you buy the device.

I don't have an iPhone either, but I don't act like people with a different opinion are drooling morons.

Re:so

[Anonymous Coward]

The mods aren't overzealous, they're from Kentucky.

Re:I don't want a device I have to "jailbreak"

[Free the Cowards]

Posting on Slashdot must automatically remove all of your ability to sympathize with other human beings too.

Let's go through why most people don't care about the stuff you raised.

1) Most people don't do anything that's restricted anyway. This is less true of being restricted to a single carrier, but people generally have very little loyalty toward an individual carrier.

2) People really do not feel that it's a big deal to connect their phone to their computer one time in the 2+ years that they will own it.

3) People don't have "many different types of media", they have MP3s. The iPhone plays MP3s.

4) $200 US does not seem overpriced to me. As for overhyped, most people don't have this weird reaction where they feel that they are obligated to dislike anything that's popular.

5) Most people simply don't care about replacing their battery.

6) Most people simply don't care about storage expansion.

Your complains are all legitimate and it's fine that you don't like the thing (I don't own one either), but it's silly to act as though the device has no merit whatsoever.

Only on Mac

[Tweenk]

(picture in TFA)
On Mac, even exploits have user-friendly GUIs!

Re:I wonder...

[samkass]

Really? I applied as an individual developer without any released Apple products, and have paid my $99 and got in. They were very restrictive until release day, but at this point I don't know anyone who's applied who hasn't gotten the invitation email. I got my email the day after the App Store was opened, and am halfway done with my first app.

And as there are enough applications in the Apple Store already that it's hard to track them all, I don't think lack of apps is anything anyone's worrying about. Jailbreaking will definitely be good for GPL fanatics (as that's the only one of the open source licenses that's incompatible), but I suspect 99% of the users won't care and will stick with the convenience, support, and variety of the official store.

Re:Don't buy it

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

Apple doesn't push updates down. You can choose not to install the updates, I know a lot of people who jailbroke the older versions still haven't upgraded to even 1.1.4.

Re:I don't want a device I have to "jailbreak"

[zonky]

For me it's not about replacing my battery after a year or two, but being able to swap out for my spare, fully charge battery when i am caught out, away from a charger.

The SDK is not incompatible with the GPL

[larry bagina]

The SDK is XCode and GCC. Neither one cares which license you use. Apple's iPhone app store requires signing, which conflicts withe the GPLv3, but it doesn't prevent using the GPLv2 or other open source licenses and it doesn't prevent you from distributing the code (or binaries).

Re:Don't buy it

[p0tat03]

The same way you'd buy an HP and throw Ubuntu on it. You like the hardware, but despise the software (or part of it), so you do what you can to change that.

I don't think anyone is going to get through to you though, you've apparently already convinced yourself that the only reason to own an iPhone is for superficial trendy reasons. Personally, I feel that the UI is far superior to any other phone on the market, particularly when compared to similar smartphones that run Windows Mobile. Let's not talk Blackberry, their UI is so woefully behind both WM and iPhone that it's really a bit pathetic.

I jailbreak mine because I like the responsiveness of the OS, I like the UI, I like how many things are taken for granted (the media capabilities out of the box are excellent, as opposed to other smartphones, where they feel grafted on, and do not integrate well with other apps). I also want to run 3rd party software on it, because there's some really good stuff out there.

Re:Don't buy it

[QuantumG]

Awesome, so you're buying a product and deliberately cutting yourself off from software updates for it.

What could possibly go wrong?

Except in Canada...

[earthforce_1]

Thanks to the upcoming C-61, anybody picking "digital locks" placed on their own damned phone is liable to a $20,000 fine!

http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/3025/125/

Nah, buy it.

[SignOfZeta]

Apple has said that they won't make updates intentionally defeat jailbreakers. I was jailbroken from 1.0.2 all the way through 2.0. And if you need Apple's help, backup and restore your phone with the stock firmware.

Re:Nah, buy it.

[@madeus]

Upgrade 1.1 irreversibly bricked phones.

No it did not. You cannot brick an iPhone (or iPod) just by installing customized firmware or messing about with the software on it - even if you try. Some people have a really hard time grasping that.

What happened to some people was it restored the status of the phone to "awaiting activation" from where they could only be used with the original SIM they were bundled with (or, technically, an already activated SIM on the appropriate locales network, taken from another iPhone).

Now that pissed some people off and meant that people who got phones and where using them with other providers couldn't keep using them anymore (as they phones wouldn't get passed activation without an activated SIM on the appropriate network for the locale being inserted).

People liked using the term "bricked" so that's how they described it, not least because many of the people in that camp didn't HAVE an original, already unlocked SIM to insert, because the bought the phones from a 3rd party and so were left with a phone that was of no use to them (but that was really still working just fine, as intended by the vendor - but not as they desired).

People in this category were impatient / foolish enough to rush out and install a largely untested update on a phone they'd already patched the software on. This is happening again with the latest jailbreak with people who have a very limited understanding of what they are doing running into problems they won't be able to fix, and I am sure there will be a lot of tears before bed time when they rush like lemmings to install the next official update over the top of their patched up date in a few weeks or so.

Thankfully the Apple restore functionality for iPods and iPhones is reliable and robust. Even if you fuck one to the point where it won't boot still doesn't mean it's "bricked" - because even after doing that you can still access the restore mode and restore full functionality, loading up factory firmware on the device.

Re:I don't want a device I have to "jailbreak"

[Free the Cowards]

That's fine. That's a reason why you don't like it. It is not, however, a reason why everybody with any sense at all shouldn't like it. There's a big difference, and people on this site have a very difficult time understanding that.

Re:Don't buy it

[Repton]

I don't know about the iPhone, but as an iPod touch owner, I'm pretty sure this is a no-risk proposition. If I install an update that breaks the device, I can just do a factory restore. All my purchased apps are backed up to my computer, so all I can lose is any jailbreak apps I've installed.

Re:Don't buy it

[spazdor]

http://www.infopackets.com/news/security/2008/20080417_vista_security_update_bricks_usb_devices.htm

Lots! Automatically downloading and installing code from an untrusted party is pretty much the only way to make sure your software continues working as expected.

Assuming Apple allows you to buy it

[Somecallmechief]

I had my first experience being denied the privilege to purchase a product yesterday. I called the Apple store at the nearest mall to verify they had units in stock, which they did. I then drove the two hours to said mall, in all eagerness to buy the product. After 30 minutes in line, and 20 minutes in angry negotiation with the Apple employee, I walked out of the store without an iPhone. They were in stock; I am an AT&T customer with an existing iPhone and eligible for an upgrade; and my account is in good standing. Unfortunately for me, there is a mysterious IFU tag on my account, which AT&T later explained means one of lines has a discount or special promotion on it, rendering me ineligible to purchase in an Apple store. As Apple refused to sell me the phone, I asked if I could bring an AT&T employee from their kiosk (literally a few dozen meters from the Apple store) to assist with the purchase. Impossible, said Apple. I asked if they could sell the unit to the AT&T kiosk to let AT&T then sell it to me or arrange some such similar inventory transfer. Impossible, Apple said. I asked if there were any way to broker a deal in the Apple store by including an AT&T employee. No, they said, and they asked me to leave. I was, admittedly, very angry. It's the prerogative of the company to choose how and to whom they sell their products, but it seems in infinitely bad taste to do either in so far as you are able. In fact, it seems like unmitigated arrogance to deny such a sale based on some vainglorious corporate policy to lock your device to a vendor and a service provider. I've never been disappointed by Apple before now in my last 2 years of Apple fanboydom. But.. hot apple sauce. I still can't believe I don't currently own an iPhone 3G.

Re:Assuming Apple allows you to buy it

[olafva]

This same situation was described on the first day by a TV reporter who was also refused as he also had a special discount. This is why potential customers were asked to come by a day or so before to check their eligibility for an iPhone 3G at the discounted rate. Clearly, thos on special discounted plans were not eligible for the full discounted rate. Thisincludes you as you could have determined by checking online before. However, it's human nature to want something and overlook the details. I'm sure you can find a solution by talking with AT&T and getting a phone from them since you are thiwr customer, however, don't expect to get the $199 or $299 discounted rate unless you give up your monthly discounted rate.

Other way around

[SuperKendall]

Not buying a great product you can easily crack is even more retarded. If you limit your options only to fully supported models of distribution you'll never have anything. You'll also face a life of being totally ripped off by the people that have you at the mercy of limited options.

The car dealer recommends you change the oil at the dealership, do you do that every tie as well?

We live in the hackers age. Embrace that, and win.

Nothing is wrong with the parallel chain

[SuperKendall]

Are you so apoplectic at people who install the XBox media center, cutting themselves off from official XBox updates?

REAL hackers accept the path of the parallel path they take. In reality there is no risk since you can always cut back to the main branch from Apple if things stop working - but why would they? If things work today they will continue to work as long as the device does.

You are just making excuses for continuance of your irrational Apple hatred.

Re:Nothing is wrong with the parallel chain

[QuantumG]

There's nothing irrational about hating Apple. They are the kings of the proprietary and I like being in control of my own hardware.

And yes, buying an Xbox so you can hack it is also retarded.

Support the suppliers who are not trying to lock down the hardware.

Re:Nothing is wrong with the parallel chain

[clang_jangle]

There's nothing irrational about hating Apple. They are the kings of the proprietary and I like being in control of my own hardware.

Any hatred is irrational, but Apple does seem quite opposed to Freedom these days, which is a strong reason not to support them. I still use a Mac a lot because I do multimedia production, which unfortunately only the Mac handles well at this time. But I would never buy an iPhone or an iPod, not with the kind of policies Apple lays down for them. It's a shame too, they could be such nice devices otherwise. And you may be sure the minute there is a Linux alternative for serious mm production*, I'll be switching over altogether.

Support the suppliers who are not trying to lock down the hardware.

Yes, that makes a lot of sense to me. But I guess the looks of a gadget are what matters more to a lot of people.

*please don't post to tell me about ardour, audacity, ecasound, etc. They just aren't ready yet, though I certainly applaud their efforts and look forward to the day they are ready.

Re:Nothing is wrong with the parallel chain

[DinDaddy]

There's nothing irrational about hating Apple. ... I still use a Mac a lot because I do multimedia production, which unfortunately only the Mac handles well at this time.

There is nothing irrational about hating the only company that is bothering to market a good solution to your work needs?

Re:Nothing is wrong with the parallel chain

[The End Of Days]

Hatred is always irrational. It doesn't arise from reason, it arises from emotion.

I personally save my emotion for people. Spending it on companies and computers seems like a horrible waste to me.

Re:Nothing is wrong with the parallel chain

[maztuhblastah]

I may well get modded down to the depths of hell for this, but I've got karma to burn:

I would never buy an iPhone or an iPod, not with the kind of policies Apple lays down for them.

What policies?

I own an iPod. I have never, nor will I ever pay money for a track from the iTunes Music Store. Instead, my iPod is loaded with MP3s (ripped with cdparanoia and encoded with LAME) and AACs (again, ripped and encoded using OSS.)

Apple has done nothing to prevent me from using portable, cross platform formats on my iPod.

Now as to the iPhone -- you have more of a case here, but (at least in the US), not much of one. In order to release a cellphone in the US, you need the support of the carriers. If you don't have the support of the carriers... well... how's Openmoko doing again? In order to appease AT&T, Apple needed to make concessions (just as it had to make concessions with iTMS to appease the labels.) One of these concessions was control over the software that could be run on the device. AT&T doesn't want people using things like VoIP apps and SMS->email gateways. Apple needs AT&T's support, so it restricts the applications that can run on the device. It's as simple as that. It would make excellent business sense for Apple to support as much software as possible, but it wouldn't make very good business sense to piss off AT&T (thereby nixing the iPhone's chances of a US release.)

Look, I'm not happy about it either. I'd like to be able to install Java, Python, etc. on the iPhone through the app store. But given that the choice seems to be a somewhat restricted cellphone (that still performs admirably at its primary task as... well... a cellphone) or no Apple phone at all, I'd pick the former.

Apple does seem quite opposed to Freedom these days

Thing is, the rest of Apple's business doesn't seem to be nearly as controlling as you make it out to be. A large chunk of Mac OS X is open source, and Apple has donated code to the community even when it wasn't required for legal reasons (mDNSResponder, for example.) Apple's also donated a tremendous amount of manpower to the open source community: WebKit, LLVM, and gcc have all benefited from Apple's engineering staff. Take WebKit for example. Apple could have simply rolled KHTML into their browser, taken the patches from KHTML when they became available, and not done any work on their own. That would have been "good enough." But they didn't do that. Instead, albeit after a rocky start, they put a programmer (Dave Hyatt) on WebKit development full-time, opened the full source tree for public access, and turned WebKit into the best open source rendering engine out there.

Open standards run deep in Apple's desktop software. plist files are XML based, Mac OS X has system-wide support for PDF -- even iTunes (that "monopolistic" music player) rips files into a interchangeable format by default (AAC.) Apple has embraced H.264 for their video efforts (compare and contrast to if they had developed their own, proprietary codec.)

We'd all like a company that produces a completely open source OS that actively pushes its users towards using completely open formats like ODF with no option to use anything proprietary. We'd love it if this company made easy-to-use, stylish products built completely out of open components. I think I speak for all of /. when I say that if such a company existed and gained even half of Apple's popularity, we'd become fanatical supporters.

But in reality, such a company hasn't come along. The open source community (at least if past efforts are anything to go by) sucks when it comes to competing with Apple and Microsoft. The Openmoko FreeRunner, the open source community's answer to the iPhone, is an embarrassingly outdated usability nightmare. The OSS community _still_ has yet to make a music player as easy-to-use for the common consumer as the iPod.

We can all rant and rave abou

OpenMoko? I'm still cringing at the interface.

[jamrock]

I love the idea of OpenMoko, but the thing is unusable, which is a shame, because people won't take it seriously once they get a load of the laughably bad interface. Qtopia looks a bit better, but it's not much of an improvement. The project needs some real interface expertise if it has any hope of success; all Android has to do to trump it is to be marginally less unusable. And does anyone know the purpose of that hole in the FreeRunner?

Re:I do not think it means what you think it means

[BLKMGK]

What, you didn't keep all of your old Nintendo carts? Guess YOU are the one playing the pirated games then. Many of the rest of us still have the carts.

Re:This "incompatible with FOSS" FUD is annoying

[bnenning]

Get on with the news, zealots: the final SDK has been released July 11, so the NDA has been lifted for more than a week now.

You'd think so, but no. If you check Apple's Cocoa mailing lists you'll see multiple nastygrams from the moderators stating that the iPhone SDK is still under NDA. It's an exceptionally stupid situation where anybody in the world can download the SDK, but nobody can talk about it, and presumably publicly posting code that uses it would be in violation.

Your opposition to those in support of Freedom

[SuperKendall]

Any hatred is irrational, but Apple does seem quite opposed to Freedom these days,

In what way?

Apple offers countless examples in support of Freedom. They support Webkit, GCC, LLVM, a multitude of common open source apps like Apache, Bonjour, Squirrelfish, etc. etc. etc.

If you yearn to support those who aid software Freedom, as I do (been a paid member of the FSF for years now) then you too would support Apple and the various open source efforts they contribute heavily to.

In the end only your hatred is misplaced, for Apple has no cause for it.