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Durandal
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Post by Durandal »

RThurmont wrote:
Since when are "open source" and "GPL" the same thing?
They're not, but many hugely popular open source projects are GPLed.
And your point is ...?
What gives Steve Jobs the right to demand additional money for me to be able to modify or install my own software on a phone that I already legitimately paid for and own? Screw him, I'll keep on jailbreaking it. It is my own fucking phone, after all.
Funny, because that's basically the official stance Apple has taken with respect to jail-broken iPhones. It is your hardware, and you can do with it as you please. Just don't expect Apple to give you support for whatever hacks you install. If you want to develop and install applications the sanctioned, supported way, you have to pay extra. Don't like it? Then why'd you buy the damn thing?

Oh yeah, and even if this wasn't the case, the fact that you bought the phone being fully aware of its inherent limitations shows that you accepted them and the fact that you'd have to go through extra lengths to surpass those limitations, whether those lengths are paying money or hacking the phone. Apple can sell anything they want with any limitations they want. Contrary to what the Oh So Holy GPL says, all software does not want or have to be free as in speech or as in beer. People put their blood, sweat and tears into this stuff. They have the right to be compensated for it.
Well, there are reasons why FreeBSD lags behind Linux in marketshare, afterall, and IMO the demented "give it all away" attitude of the BSD community is a major factor.
Wow, and this has what to do with my point? Oh right, nothing.
Admiral Valdemar wrote:As I understand it, Apple has denied licences to some people as they want to restrict how many go about making applications for the time being. Correct me if wrong, it does seen a tad silly when so many have such talent and ideas.
There could be a thousand different reasons, one of which might have to do with stabilizing the API. You don't release an API for mass consumption unless you're damn sure you won't be changing it.
Oh, I'm more than aware that the SDK is just the suite one uses to develop the software they want (I did do programming for a few years). I'm just saying that the way Apple has restricted how it's distributed seems an odd move for now. I'd rather have everyone willing to make stuff for the device out there doing it.
The 2.0 firmware is in beta. Since when is it anything resembling surprising that a company would have a private beta period for an unreleased product? Hell, we seed select developers with pre-release builds of Mac OS X updates, and I don't see anyone accusing us of being fascists because of that.
Not I. I liked the UK Mac ads because I happen to dislike Windows too. I just don't fellate Jobs because his stuff works (for a price).
Wow, a Brit who liked the UK ads? I was under the impression that they went over like a lead balloon over there.
The fuck?! MMS in the States must suck donkey cock then. I want to send an image or video? I take the picture or record something and click send via MMS. It sends in the background. And I could do that flawlessly and cheaply with my ancient K700i. There's no difference between that system and what I use in my N95, only now I can e-mail if I want too (which may be cheaper and more convenient given the rise of web capable devices now).

I'm no knocking the whole using the Internet directly method, I just find it a bit early to go only that route when MMS is, at least here and the rest of Europe, a piece of piss and far more common.
That's the whole point. Carriers are gouging people for MMS and SMS. Both have what are essentially free replacements (provided you have an unlimited data plan, which all iPhones users basically do) available through TCP/IP. These things won't stick around very much longer. People do pay attention to their cell phone bills.
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Post by RThurmont »

My point, Durandal, is merely that the iPhone SDK sucks (to a massive extent) and offers no compelling motivation for a person who is, at present, using jailbreaks and other hacks to run third party apps to stop.

The tragedy though is that as long as you have to jailbreak the iPhone in order to run certain classes of apps, certain commercial apps and open source projects will never be "officially" ported.

I bought my iPhone because, at present, it does have the best web browser on a currently availible mobile phone, and there is a third party community out there that writes great software for it. I've had a lot of fun with it, but not in the manner that those at Apple would prefer (I've barely used the iPod functionality, but I routinely use the term-vt-100 app to ssh into my stuff while out of the office, play Tetris, or use MobileChat).
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Durandal
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Post by Durandal »

RThurmont wrote:My point, Durandal, is merely that the iPhone SDK sucks (to a massive extent) and offers no compelling motivation for a person who is, at present, using jailbreaks and other hacks to run third party apps to stop.
Oh is that "merely" your point. :roll: And providing an official, sanctioned way to make money off of iPhone apps is enough of a motivation, especially when you factor in all the stuff Apple does for you -- hosts your app, distributes it, puts it on the Internet equivalent of a retail shelf and handles all financing. Whereas with a 3rd-party app meant to run on a jailbroken phone, you have to get users to jailbreak their phones first.

And why does everything have to either be great or suck with you anyway? I don't think I've ever once heard you evaluate something (certainly not any Apple product) to have strengths and weaknesses. It's just "It sucks!"
The tragedy though is that as long as you have to jailbreak the iPhone in order to run certain classes of apps, certain commercial apps and open source projects will never be "officially" ported.
Of course they won't. There are limitations to what the official SDK allows you to do, and those cases will become the motivator for jailbreaking to continue. I don't anticipate the jailbreaking market to lose too much steam, especially since the SDK won't allow you to run background apps right now, which is a glaring weakness.

But saying that the release of an official SDK will have no impact on already-developed 3rd-party apps is just plain fucking stupid. Certain apps have no reason not to use the official SDK because they don't need background processing or access to API that is not exposed in the iPhone SDK but is exposed in the jailbreak ARM toolchain.
I bought my iPhone because, at present, it does have the best web browser on a currently availible mobile phone, and there is a third party community out there that writes great software for it. I've had a lot of fun with it, but not in the manner that those at Apple would prefer (I've barely used the iPod functionality, but I routinely use the term-vt-100 app to ssh into my stuff while out of the office, play Tetris, or use MobileChat).
Believe it or not, Apple doesn't care that you play Tetris on your iPhone. They have no preference, and no, you're not "sticking it to The Man" by jail-breaking your phone any more than when you install an input manager to get extra functionality out of Safari on Mac OS X. I posted a quote from Greg Joswiak of Apple saying that you are absolutely free to do so, and I noticed that you didn't address that directly. Maybe because it makes you look stupid.

Apple's already got your money. What do they care whether you use your iPhone to play Tetris?
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Praxis
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Post by Praxis »

RThurmont wrote:My point, Durandal, is merely that the iPhone SDK sucks (to a massive extent) and offers no compelling motivation for a person who is, at present, using jailbreaks and other hacks to run third party apps to stop.
Actually, as a jailbreaked iPhone user I look very much forward to the SDK. Oh, I intend to still jailbreak the iPhone, however, after the 2.0 firmware comes out. :)

The future of jailbreaking at this point looks to be removing the need for Apple's certificate for apps to run. There's a lot of talk about this with the jailbreakers at the moment. See, Apple'll be banning IM applications and stuff like emulators.

I'll be jailbreaking my 2.0 iPhone so that I can run my NES and SNES emulators :) But the important bit is that the future of jailbreaking will have apps built with the official SDK but able to run outside of Apple's distribution- for stuff Apple can't officially approve, like emulators. PLUS we'll have the ability to run and buy the official apps, which will honestly probably be much higher quality than the stuff we have on jailbreaked phones which breaks on every update. I still have a few apps that haven't been updated to work with 1.1.3 or 1.1.4.


I can't understand how you think the SDK sucks. It seems to be very well put together and will be a boon to both official and jailbroken developers alike.
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