Posts Tagged ‘iPhone Apps’

Jailbreak!

Thursday, August 28th, 2008

I just took a bit of time to jailbreak my iPhone today… and it’s totally and completely awesome.  There are so many applications out there!

To figure out how to do this yourself, read these instructions and get the tools you need from the iPhone Dev Team.

Is this safe? Probably.  I’m sure it violates some terms of some contract I signed somewhere.  But I have to say — given the seemingly unlimited possibilities for application development that are realized in the jailbroken world — the folks at Apple are being incredibly lame in their furious protection of the iPhone App world.  Don’t believe me?  Take a look around to see what applications you can get when your iPhone has been jailbroken.  Like Snapture — that makes the camera acually useful.

I know Apple wants to be careful.  Yes.  If they didn’t have rules for what could and could not make it into the App Store the whole thing would have the potential to turn into the wild west.  But there’s got to be a middle ground.  Right now I’d say about 95% of the applications in iTunes are TOTALLY WORTHLESS.  Who on earth needs another version of Sudoku?  Some of the thigns there don’t even work (I’m looking at you AOL Instant Messenger!).

And I’m sure Apple has reasons behind what they reject from the App Store.  And they have rules for software development that some of these people are bending.  But I wish they’d loosen their grip a little.  Some of the things 3rd party developers are dreaming up are so much more innovative and useful than anything a developer could make given their current SDK rules.

Chill out, Apple.  You’re totally going to win and you know it.  Relax.  And maybe think about letting some of the big kids play in the playground too.

Hilariously Frivolous

Friday, August 8th, 2008

Ok.  So because the 2nd Gen iPhones were so ‘affordable’ some developer out there made a completely frivolous show-off app called I Am Rich.  It costs the maximum application cost in the iTunes store ($999.99) and it’s only purpose is to let people know you have money to burn (when you start the application all it does is display a cheap looking glowing ruby).

I Am so totally Rich

I Am so totally Rich

Now it’s time for you to decide which is more ridiculous:

1. 8 people purchased this application — 6 from the US, 1 from France and 1 from Germany.

2. Apple was so offended by the application that they removed it from the store, even though it didn’t technically violate any terms of the iPhone Developer contract.

I’m still trying to decide myself.

Anyway, it’s gone now.  So all of you fat cats out there will have to sling your money at something else.  Too bad you didn’t get a change to download it in time.

And you thought you lost out when Apple pulled down the NetShare tethering app.

Read the full story on I Am Rich on the LA Times