Killer aps for the iPhone?

[NewChief]

My wife finally got her beloved iPhone. I admit that I can't stop playing with the thing either. Anyone have any favorite apps? I've downloaded some freebies: facebook, wikipedia, sports updates, flashlight.

What are some must haves that are actually worth paying for?

[NewChief]

Originally Posted by Guru

I would think that if Sansa can get it right on the lowly Clip then Apple should be able to to it on the Touch pretty easily.

I could be wrong, but I think they're making fun of you. Programmers tend to get touchy about humans questioning algorithms. The same thing was always said about the shuffle feature, btw. People would say, "My shuffle plays the same songs over and over." or "My shuffle really likes this artist." I listened to an NPR special on it, and they had programmers and psychologists on there. Basically, the shuffle was truly random, but human minds strive for pattern recognition. As such, we'll impose or see patterns in things, even if they're truly random.

All that being said: my Genius has moments of genius, but it also has moments of stupidity.

[JD10367]

I barely used my Touch on the bus, and I swear I'd the thing if I could. Just checking my e-mail, using ESPN ScoreCenter, Facebook, the Map app, and the Weather Channel app--not to mention launching the Safari browser to post here--made it worth it. I haven't even tried a game yet, but I'm writing all these suggestions down.

I did use an app called FreeWiFi which tells you of the WiFi spots around your current location, in case you have a Touch and not a Phone and want to know where the next place is that you can mooch off of.

[007]

Originally Posted by NewPhin

I could be wrong, but I think they're making fun of you. Programmers tend to get touchy about humans questioning algorithms. The same thing was always said about the shuffle feature, btw. People would say, "My shuffle plays the same songs over and over." or "My shuffle really likes this artist." I listened to an NPR special on it, and they had programmers and psychologists on there. Basically, the shuffle was truly random, but human minds strive for pattern recognition. As such, we'll impose or see patterns in things, even if they're truly random.

All that being said: my Genius has moments of genius, but it also has moments of stupidity.

Believe me, I know they are making fun. What they don't get is Sansa is kicking Apple's ass with their shuffle algorithm. I have a playlist of about 200 songs I love on my ipod and it constantly repeats songs while my Sansa has over 300 songs on it and it will NEVER repeat a song until it has played every last one. They went through a lot of trial and error with the end users and finally came out with a firmware to permanently remedy the issue a couple of years ago. If Apple is so damn good, why can sansa do something perfectly and they cannot?

they can make fun all they want but they are not even trying. They are just resting on their laurels.

[007]

Don't know about killer but interesting...

[irishjayhawk]

Originally Posted by JD10367

I barely used my Touch on the bus, and I swear I'd the thing if I could. Just checking my e-mail, using ESPN ScoreCenter, Facebook, the Map app, and the Weather Channel app--not to mention launching the Safari browser to post here--made it worth it. I haven't even tried a game yet, but I'm writing all these suggestions down.

I did use an app called FreeWiFi which tells you of the WiFi spots around your current location, in case you have a Touch and not a Phone and want to know where the next place is that you can mooch off of.

Which one? I searched for FreeWiFi and came up with like 10.

[irishjayhawk]

Originally Posted by Guru

Believe me, I know they are making fun. What they don't get is Sansa is kicking Apple's ass with their shuffle algorithm. I have a playlist of about 200 songs I love on my ipod and it constantly repeats songs while my Sansa has over 300 songs on it and it will NEVER repeat a song until it has played every last one. They went through a lot of trial and error with the end users and finally came out with a firmware to permanently remedy the issue a couple of years ago. If Apple is so damn good, why can sansa do something perfectly and they cannot?

they can make fun all they want but they are not even trying. They are just resting on their laurels.

Well, there might be a simple difference. Apple has true shuffle whereas Sansa is remembering what song's you've played already and shuffling the rest until it goes full circle.

I'm assuming you'd like the latter. But to say that it isn't true shuffle is not true. Personally, there are a couple gripes I have with Apple's ipod functionality on the Touch. One is that, and one is the fact that it won't remember - even when you're not shuffling - what point it was in the playlist when you did something else or went elsewhere on the touch.

[JD10367]

Originally Posted by irishjayhawk

Which one? I searched for FreeWiFi and came up with like 10.

It's just called "Free WiFi", but the main screen says Global Free Wi-Fi and it's done by Jiwire. Not sure if it's any better or worse than another, though.

I recently downloaded iHandyLevel, which is pretty cool. Don't know if I'd use it to build a building, but it seems decent enough for quick uses.

Another good one if you have kids is Offender Locator. I don't have kids, I just thought it would be interesting to find the perverts in my area. No, my name didn't come up, LOL.

Also like Planets. Tells you when they're visible, gives you little graphics of them (although for some reason I can't scroll past Jupiter). Neat.

[Fish]

If you want to do any stargazing on your iPhone, definitely check out Starmap. I can't praise this app enough. I have the Pro version, and it's worth every penny.

http://www.star-map.fr/

[007]

Originally Posted by irishjayhawk

Well, there might be a simple difference. Apple has true shuffle whereas Sansa is remembering what song's you've played already and shuffling the rest until it goes full circle.

I'm assuming you'd like the latter. But to say that it isn't true shuffle is not true. Personally, there are a couple gripes I have with Apple's ipod functionality on the Touch. One is that, and one is the fact that it won't remember - even when you're not shuffling - what point it was in the playlist when you did something else or went elsewhere on the touch.

That is my secondary gripe as well.

[BigRedChief]

Originally Posted by KC Fish

Well..... the easy answer is to get a Mac, or borrow one from a friend. Right now the only way to jailbreak OS 3.1 is with PwnageTool 3.1 on a Mac. Or at least the important part of creating the custom firmware must be done on a Mac.

http://www.iphonehacks.com/2009/09/s...getool-31.html

But word is that there will be a Windows version released soon.

I might be able to send you a firmware I created on a Mac that would work for your 3G if you're really interested.

Apple battles 'jailbreakers' over iPhone control

By Brian X. Chen, Wired
November 16, 2009 9:32 a.m. EST

WIRED) -- When he was 17, George Hotz poured hundreds of hours of his summer vacation into a special project: learning the iPhone's secrets. His unpaid labor eventually paid off.

With the help of a soldering iron, he was the first to unlock the iPhone, delivering the handset to international networks before Apple had a chance to.

He got some perks, too. His unlock catapulted him to internet stardom, catching the eye of an entrepreneur who traded his Nissan 350Z car for Hotz's restriction-free iPhone.

Hotz, now 20, makes a living as a "hacker for hire" of sorts -- getting paid to break into different types of gadgets. He gets to spend his free time unofficially attending a college, where he pretends to be a student just to socialize.

What's best, Hotz didn't think unlocking the iPhone was even hard.
"It did take 500 hours, but thinking back to some of the stuff I've done now, the first iPhone was incredibly easy," Hotz said in a phone interview.
But what was an easy task for a curious teen has turned into a persistent headache for Apple, one that the company has been trying to cure for over two years, with little success.

With each new version of the iPhone operating system, a small army of independent programmers and hackers get to work prying it open, removing restrictions and making their iPhones do things that Apple CEO Steve Jobs never intended.

To stay faithful to agreements with telecom partners, Jobs in September 2007 declared Apple was playing a "cat-and-mouse game" to disable unlocked iPhones. Apple regularly issues software updates to disable hacked, unlocked versions of the handset. But within a few weeks, new hacks emerge, freeing the iPhone from carrier restrictions again.
In fact, Hotz just last month released the easiest hacking solution for the iPhone to date.

Named "Blackra1n," his software can hack and unlock an iPhone in just two minutes. All the user needs to do is plug in an iPhone, launch the application and click a button.

It's safe to say this is a game where the mouse has outrun the cat, and it's unlikely Apple will catch up anytime soon. That's because Apple is up against a lot more than an individual hacker.

The iPhone and its App Store not only gave birth to a new digital frontier for mobile software, but created an entire underground ecosystem: the Jailbreak community.

In addition to multiple iPhone hacker groups pumping out different unlocking solutions on a regular basis, there are several stores hosting unauthorized iPhone apps and programmers developing software strictly for hacked iPhones.

Hackers adopted the word "jailbreak" to describe the act of overriding the iPhone's restrictions to install unauthorized software in the device. Jailbreaking is the first step an iPhone owner must take in order to later execute the hack to unlock the handset, enabling it to work with any carrier.

The original iPhone was extremely insecure and thus very easy to jailbreak, according to Hotz, and hackers almost immediately broke into the gadget after it debuted in June 2007.

Jailbreaking accelerated quickly. Soon, hackers reverse-engineered major parts of the iPhone API, and they opened doors to creating and installing third-party apps for the device.

Games, utilities and even custom themes and wallpapers enhanced the capabilities of the handset. To Apple enthusiasts, this was exciting: The iPhone at the time had no App Store, so jailbreaking was the only way to get more than the handful of basic apps provided by Apple.

In August 2007, Hotz announced he had unlocked the iPhone with the Dev Team, a group of hackers that posts jailbreak tools and instructions. Soon after, Hotz released software that anyone in the world could use to make their iPhone work with any carrier's SIM card.

When Apple in July 2008 opened its official App Store, the urge to jailbreak got less exciting. The App Store grew quickly -- with 100,000 apps to date -- making the act of jailbreaking seemingly irrelevant to the average iPhone owner, who could download Apple-sanctioned apps without risk.

Reformation
But the App Store didn't stop the Jailbreak community from proliferating. Now that the App Store exists, jailbreakers have shifted their focus to creating work-arounds for the iPhone's many restrictions. Most share an open-software philosophy, giving consumers full ownership rights over their product, or the ability to do whatever they wish with the gadget they paid for.

Jay Freeman owns Cydia, an unauthorized app store open to jailbroken iPhones, which distributes iPhone apps Apple would otherwise forbid. Before opening his store, Freeman played an instrumental role in setting up the early groundwork for the jailbreak platform.

Often referred to as "Saurik" in the Jailbreak community, Freeman admitted he was initially reluctant about the iPhone due to its stifling limitations.
"Apple seems to have spent very little time looking at previous phones, and left out many features that users, such as myself, have come to expect," said Freeman, reflecting on the original iPhone. "However, [a friend] insisted to me that jailbreaking was the future. The software it comes with doesn't matter; I can just rewrite it all to my liking."

The need for an underground app store became more clear after Apple rejected several iPhone apps. The company faced severe scrutiny when it rejected the official Google Voice app, which would enable consumers to use a single phone number to ring all their phones, send free text messages and make cheap international calls.

The move stirred so much controversy that even the Federal Communications Commission investigated the rejection.

Unauthorized app stores served as a way of circumventing Apple's censorship. And some programmers are even making money coding forbidden iPhone apps.

"People are so annoyed by Apple and their shit, and if you give them opportunity to go around it, then they'll even pay for it," said Kim Streich, a developer whose app 3G Unrestrictor earned $19,000 in sales in just two weeks through Cydia.

With more than 10 million jailbroken iPhones registered, Freeman's Cydia store is the most popular underground app store. Icy and Installer, two previous unauthorized iPhone software distributors, have been discontinued.

Whenever Apple releases an iPhone update, the new software usually erases unauthorized apps and disables unlocked iPhones. In response, the iPhone hacker group Dev Team continues to post regular updates on its blog with instructions and new jailbreak patches for newer iPhone software. The Dev Team's main jailbreak weapon is called Pwnage Tool, which creates a custom (hacked) patch for Apple's iPhone firmware and then installs it on the device.

To further combat jailbreaks, Apple has attempted to claim to the U.S. Copyright Office that jailbreaking is illegal.

However, the Dev Team skirts around copyright issues by not copying and providing Apple's software, according to Eric McDonald, a member of the Dev Team. Instead, the Pwnage Tool requires iPhone users to download Apple's legitimate firmware, and the Pwnage Tool patches it with jailbreak code.

Hotz, who was kicked out of the Dev Team after prematurely publishing information on iPhone hacks, still hacks away the iPhone on his own. Hotz doesn't demand money for his work, though he does accept donations.
He isn't shy about showing his face to Apple or the world, either: When running Blackra1n, the iPhone temporarily displays a photo of Hotz styled as an angel from a Caravaggio painting (above).

"Blackra1n is only 600K, and 200k of it is my picture," Hotz said, laughing.
Though the Jailbreak community persistently issues new hacks for iPhone updates, Apple is continuing to fight. A recent Apple job listing reveals the company is seeking an iPhone OS security manager to help prevent exploits, which could block future jailbreak solutions.

Hotz doubted a security expert could block his efforts. In fact, he said he's already discovered a brand new exploit that will jailbreak and unlock Apple's fourth-generation iPhone -- presumably due in stores summer of 2010 -- even though he hasn't touched it.

"Personally I love that Apple keeps the iPhone closed," Hotz said. "This is a personal hobby; it'd be no fun if Apple didn't have it closed anymore. Get a Jailbreak cop and then I'll show them what I can really do."

[007]

Well, Apple could just start doing some of the thing these hacked phones can do.

[BigRedChief]

Originally Posted by Guru

Well, Apple could just start doing some of the thing these hacked phones can do.

It's the same BS Microsoft pulls. They have to be prodded by comopetition or they won't release new features or options.

[bishop_74]

All Konami apps $0.99 today!

http://appadvice.com/appnn/2009/11/a...n-sale-for-99/

[007]

Originally Posted by bishop_74

All Konami apps $0.99 today!

http://appadvice.com/appnn/2009/11/a...n-sale-for-99/

But are any of them worth it?

[irishjayhawk]

Originally Posted by BigRedChief

It's the same BS Microsoft pulls. They have to be prodded by comopetition or they won't release new features or options.

Look at their ipod department. They didn't have to do shit to that line to keep their ungodly market share. Yet, they completely cannibalized their sales with the Touch. And they added feature after feature pretty much every year on every iPod line they had.

There are plenty of things wrong with the iPhone and it's ecosystem but no new features because of the lack of competition is not one of them.