Home ›

Are Jailbreak iPhone Apps Still Necessary?

Submitted by Edward Kirk on July 23, 2008 - 8:55pm.
in

So the App Store is great. It gives the hundreds of developers who didn't want to take their time developing for an unofficial software platform the ability to publish apps for the iPhone and iPod touch. But it's still far from perfect, and the restrictions involved with the SDK are beginning to prove that we really can't do without hacking after all.

Not that there aren't a lot of really fantastic apps available in the App Store already. Some of them are absolutely amazing and have the potential to change our lifestyle. But there are even more way cooler things that Apple is completely refusing to allow into the App Store.

A prime example of this is the fact that if you go to the App Store, you will find at least 5 apps that do nothing but turn your iPhone's screen into a small flashlight. However, you won't find a single app in there that does anything like turning it into a Wi-Fi hotspot or changing the way you listen to music. There are a few main things standing in their way:

  • No changing or enhancing iTunes or iPod functionality in any way shape or form. That means no cool things like Instinctiv Shuffle or the previous Tap Tap Revolution.
  • No background processes. This was by far one of the most hotly debated restrictions, although their upcoming push notification service will probably make up for it. unfortunately it also means a thrid-party copy/paste solution won't happen under the SDK.
  • No integration of apps or functions into the OS. This means that no accessing calendar or SMS, as well as several other things.
  • No Pirated games, movies etc. Obvious as that sounds, it means that NES.app and other emulators are out.
  • No apps using copyrights, trademarks or intellectual property of a major company unless that company developed the app. That means no TiVo remote.
  • No deep access to the hardware. Apple has "privatized" the CoreSurface framework, which is "making it very difficult for developers to write their own movie players, 2D games, and similar kinds of renderings." Camera Pro was ousted by that one.
  • Apple's review process takes an eternity and is highly mysterious.
  • No beta testing, at least for now.

That's why it's become increasingly clear that in order to have all those really amazing, mind-blowing, game changing applications, you'll have to look past the App Store and go with hacking your iPhone. At the moment there isn't much incentive to do so, considering that most of the apps that were available in 1.1.4 on Installer.app don't yet work on 2.0, but as more are shunned by the SDK, the number of appealing unofficial apps may grow.

[via Gizmodo]

Submitted by Kevin Dunahee on July 24, 2008 - 12:22am.
Yeah I think you pretty much hit all the main points. Some of them Apple may give on eventually, but they will never allow true freedom with the SDK. Their decision makes perfect sense, but so does the dev team's reasoning for creating jailbreak utilities. Fortunately, the jailbreak utilities have made it easy enough that just about anybody can make a relatively educated decision as to whether or not they wish to go ahead and jailbreak.

Personally, there aren't a ton of apps for the jailbreak installers that I depend on. Most that I did frequently use have been reborn through the app store. I love DropCopy to no end. It's a life saver. That's something Apple would never allow. And I have to get my themes back. The default iPhone 'theme' is very blah. Not to mention some of the hideous/tacky icons that some AppStore apps have. I love my custom theme and would love even more to have it back.

we all have our list of wants...

Submitted by dimitrin on July 24, 2008 - 9:48am.
Jailbreak is vital to things we are not directly aware of which apple would like to hide from us.

First, there are a host of back side "apps" more like modules services or libraries which allow other things to happen which Apple may or may not open to users.

Second, the "sandbox" environment which Apple has set-up for apps makes running apps continually and in the background impossible. Best example is I would love Pandora to continually play, to run other apps while listening to pandora music... Not possible with the Apple SDK. While this is dangerous to battery life, it can be useful and fun, if done well.

Third, Apple did not make the system open for worry that the device would crash and they would have no control... Well my app store apps crash my phone happily two or three times a day. Guess they failed that one.

I hope to outside dev world continues. I have bought apps for them in the past and will in the future, cutting out pointless middle men.

Themes

Submitted by Stephen007 on July 24, 2008 - 10:02am.
I don't think Apple is allowing anyone to create any sort of theme app as it would modify the graphics/sounds/etc. built into the OS. There are a lot of us that would like to change the icons around, make things a little cooler and/or more personal... change the sound used for email, SMS, etc.

Themes too

Submitted by wiredpup (not verified) on July 27, 2008 - 1:49pm.
It'd be nice to be able to change themes, icons, etc, but I would hate to brick my phone.

Submitted by Kevin Dunahee on July 27, 2008 - 3:54pm.
Just jailbroke last night. Took a half hour tops. Man, back when I jailbroke my iPod touch, things were NOT this simple. It's essentially just a series of clicks in the Pwnage tool. They've made it so retardedly easy now with huge lettered instructions that make it almost impossible to goof anything up. I [HEART] Dev Team.

Come on, Summerboard!

Submitted by xxx on July 27, 2008 - 9:15pm.
Ya, I still believe it is necessary as well. Apple is still holding back on what a person's limitations are toward modifying the phone.