Jail-Breaking iPhones at the Apple Store

An anonymous reader writes "According to an article in Xconomy, iPhone hacker and author Jonathan Zdziarski was invited to speak at an Apple Store in Cambridge, MA last week where he talked about the history of iPhone hacking, jail-breaking, and limitations of the official SDK. From the article, "Zdziarski was one of the first software engineers to figure out how to hack the iPhone, and he's the author of a forthcoming O'Reilly Media book called iPhone Open Application Development, which gives readers explicit instructions on jail-breaking iPhones. So for Apple to give Zdziarski the podium at an Apple retail location is a little like Steve Ballmer inviting Linus Torvalds to speak at a Windows product launch." Zdziarski reports in his own blog how the open source community was on the iPhone developer scene as early as 2007, long before enterprises got there, and estimates that nearly 40% of all iPhones have been jail-broken to run the third-party community software installer. Finally, this story from Top Tech News suggests that open source software might actually create competition for Apple's "official" developers, because applications using the open source iPhone compiler are not subject to the same limitations as official Apple SDK programs are."

Re:Only One SDK App Available!

[Henriok]

Seriously? This is not insightful, this is retarded. There isn't supposed to be any at all! There are currently only one way to legitemately distribute applicaitons for the iPhone, and that is if it comes bundled with it. The SDK will allow distribution through the second way, namely the App Store and it won't be online for many months. If anyone had asked me, I'd say that one legit third party app is exactly one too many at this stage. I'm really surprised that there are any at all since there isn't any legit way of distributing them, and no legit way to have it installed on an iPhone.

Re:Only One SDK App Available!

[mr100percent]

Who modded the troll up?

Apple's SDK is in beta, and no applications can be installed on the iPhone/iPod touch UNLESS that person has a $99 Apple certificate key to install that app for testing purposes. Until June, when Apple releases the 2.0 software upgrade, nothing can be installed for anyone.

To correct the parent, there are zero legitimate applications that have been released into the wild. The link you gave is for source code or something that can be run on an emulator. By June, there will be more than the hundreds that the jailbroken installer.app has

its free as in, "Libre"

[Anonymous Coward]

Not all of us mind paying for software, you know. That's one thing I have never understood about the OSS movement -- that some people think that everything should be free and that anyone who tries to make a profit from software is somehow "bad". The two worlds can co-exist together.

When OSS people use the word "free", they are referring to freedom, not price.

Re:Very clear signal from Apple that jail-breaking

[bnenning]

If you want to jailbreak an ipod touch/iphone you still have to downgrade to 1.1.1

Not any more. With ziPhone, jailbreaking and unlocking any iPhone up to 1.1.4 is trivial; details here [unlock.no].

Re:There are no unanswered questions..

[DECS]

Since you asked for it:

Phone 2.0 SDK: The No Multitasking Myth [roughlydrafted.com]

The short version: remember the headlines gasping that the iPhone could have spy software installed that took pictures with its camera and mailed them to the Terrorists? That can't happen with SDK software. It can (hypothetically) happen with jailbroken phones. That's why Apple has engineered safeguards into its SDK. Because it's trying to be responsible, unlike the current state of Windows, Java, Flash and other filthy platforms.

The fact that you'd rather spew forth ignorance than recognize that obvious fact demonstrates that you're either a moron or highly disingenuous. You don't have to support Apple's outlook, but representing it as a pointless limitation that hurts users is simply irresponsible.

Why did you get modded Flamebait?

[StarKruzr]

Partial List
MobileScrobbler
Sketches
Flashlight (amazing how often this comes in handy)
OpenSSH (server and client)
MobileChat
bsflite
ScummVM
VNsea
iPhysics (SO ADDICTIVE OMG)
PocketGuitar
VNotes
Firefly Media Server

Event was sponsored by MoMoBoston, not Apple

[smartphonegeek]

I attended the event at the Apple Store. The event was an Apple iPhone SDK party sponsored by the Boston Chapter of Mobile Monday. Since it involved the Apple SDK, the event was conducted at the local Apple Store, a first for a Mobile Monday meeting. After the talk, and demos, there was a party at a nearby hotel. The hotel party was sponsored by local companies only, no known Apple involvement. Not sure if Apple had anything to do with the event other than supplying the location since it was celebrating the release of the iPhone SDK, and sponsored by Mobile Monday. The main speaker only talked for about 20 minutes, and the talk was very general in nature. The store was too small to host all that attended, and the store was trying to conduct their normal retail operations while the meeting was in progress. No seats, standing only with one or two exceptions. Would have preferred the meeting at the normal locations - MIT classroom, or nearby Nokia Research Center.