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iPhone 1.1.3 Update Confirmed, Breaks Apps and Unlocks
Posted by
Zonk
on Sun Dec 30, 2007 01:41 AM
from the peak-into-the-itech-future dept.
from the peak-into-the-itech-future dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Gizmodo has gathered conclusive evidence which confirms that the iPhone Firmware 1.1.3 update is 100% real. It installs only from iTunes using the obligatory Apple private encryption key, which nobody has. The list of new features, like GPS-like triangulation positioning in Google Maps, has been confirmed too. Apparently it will be coming out next week, but there's bad news as expected: it breaks the unlocks, patches the previous vulnerabilities used by hackers and takes away all your third-party applications."
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Technology: iPhone To Allow 3rd-Party Development 215 comments
Anarchysoft writes "In an exciting shift from previous statements, Apple CEO Steve Jobs revealed at the D Conference that 3rd-party development will be supported on the iPhone. Questions remain as to whether the opening of the platform, slated for later this year, will be through Dashboard-like widgets or a separate SDK."
Firehose:iPhone 1.1.3 Update Confirmed, Breaks Apps, Unlock by Anonymous Coward
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And lo... (Score:5, Funny)
They cried out, "don't raze me bro!!!"
Re:And lo... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:And lo... (Score:4, Funny)
Poor iPhone shaking on the ground, a running helicopter in the distance.
A fanatic iPhone hacker tries to twiddle with the touch-screen to get the damn big investment to work, next to him stands Jobs in a long latex costume, holding a firmware update next to the hacker's head. He says "Unlock this" and fires the update 1.1.3.
But Neo isn't there, Neo is home, enjoying a simple unlocked phone that has 3G and tons on applications and just works (and it was cheaper)
When iphone came out, a lot of people made the noise "locked phone ? forget it mate, i will go and buy something else"
Not remotely GPS-like.. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Not remotely GPS-like.. (Score:5, Informative)
I'd imagine towers are denser in most dense walking areas, allowing more accurate positions (with more intersecting hyperbolae), and that's where I see the feature being most useful. T
That is, the feature isn't a replacement for something like a Garmin or TomTom, but I can see it being very useful for when you're lost in a pedestrian area and have time to look at a street sign and get your precise position once it gets you very close.
Re:Not remotely GPS-like.. (Score:4, Funny)
This way big brother might know I'm in the red light district, but at least he won't know whether I'm in Marv's Muff Emporium or Kinky Kurt's Krotch Kingdom
3rd party (Score:5, Interesting)
How dare they! (Score:5, Funny)
They're violating hackers' right to run their code on whoever's hardware they like!
Valid Security Concerns (Score:5, Insightful)
BUT
most of the security circumnavigation is a result of buffer overflows and other stuff that could be used in theory by attackers as well so they are right to patch it.
Personally I'm going to wait until after the SDK is released until I think about buying one, and anybody else who is currently trying to hack the iphone should do the same (even just to save their wallets from more brick costs).
Why no J2ME (Score:5, Interesting)
I have been doing Java stuff for a long time. And I've even done a few small things in J2ME in the past.
But if you think about it, there's a good reason the iPhone doesn't have J2ME - it's not M. That is, nothing about the iPhone is anything like the reference J2ME platform, and it's really not a "Micro" kind of platform in the traditional sense of the word. But there's also no good Java GUI API to an all touch input device either, so you combine that with Java processor and memory requirements and it's really not a good fit for the iPhone, at least right now.
Now that XCode/ObjC has garbage collection, there's really no good reason a Java developer couldn't move over to Objective C if they really want to develop something for the platform.
When the API is finally released, we probably will see someone release a J2ME emulator for the iPhone which would be kind of interesting. But I think it would be some work to put that together.
Bah (Score:5, Interesting)
The issue with the unlocking is a different however. But, until the US people stand up and actually say that they want universal unlocking for all phones e.t.c. exclusive deals like the iPhone will continue. (Speaking of which, there have been exclusive phones in the past, and there will be more in the future, why is the iPhone always singled out for this?
Re:Bah (Score:4, Insightful)
Because Apple has worked extremely hard to put themselves in the limelight, to maintain as high a profile as possible
Re:Tis the Season (Score:5, Insightful)
A correlary of this statement is that Apple really isn't fighting its users, as a group. It's just fighting a small minority of users who hack their iPhones, so your statement about Apply "fighting their users makes no real sense", itself makes no real sense.
Disclaimer: I don't own an iPhone, but I might if I was richer.
Re:Tis the Season (Score:4, Informative)
Unlocking is not the same as running applications (Score:4, Informative)
Re:The cryPhone (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The cryPhone (Score:5, Interesting)
The movement to provide on-demand services is NOT about improving life for the customer. It has ALWAYS been about improving revenue. Getting more for less.
and anyway...
I own a hacked iPhone with the 1.1.2 firmware with about 15 third-party applications on it. This thing is by far the most useful consumer electronics device I've ever owned (besides my pc of course). I don't have to upgrade to 1.1.3 and it is still useful to me. When it's cracked I'll upgrade.... but either way it's still a win/win for me.
Re:Wake up Apple! (Score:5, Interesting)
Funny. Microsoft allows complete and open access to their Windows Mobile OS (whether or not you can load your apps onto the phone is left to the decision of the carriers). In fact they even opened the source [microsoft.com] for the OS (okay, it's a Shared Source license, and it requires having an officially licensed version of Windows Embedded CE 6.0, but the source code is all there if you want to modify it while building a new device of your own). I think this is a case where you want Apple to act more like Microsoft rather than less.
On the other hand, I'm an iPhone user. I spent a fair amount of time playing with Windows CE in the past, and while I like the system I was not a fan of any of the current phones using it today. So I bought an iPhone, and I like it. The current lack of an SDK isn't slowing me down, since I probably wouldn't write any iPhone apps anyway (as much as I'd like to think I would, I know that I'd just dabble a bit and never actually finish anything). Sure, there are some things that are missing (GPS, full Exchange connectivity, an IM app), but I can live without those at least for now.
Re:Why do people like the iphone? (Score:4, Insightful)
I just bought an iPhone. 2 days ago. I am both pleased and underwhelmed. I find that it doesn't do as much as i would have hoped. It does a lot well, and the browsing is nice, i wish it were faster. Even in wifi mode, it isnt as fast as browsing on a laptop over wifi.
Its a great start. It really is a nice way to use a phone but i do think that it will be a challenge for apple or any developer when they open their sdk, to add more complex functions to the ui workflow.
Currently there is no copy and paste for example. How do you do it with just a touch screen ui? You only have so much screen space, plus you run the risk of touching other things on screen and activating their functions.
Its a great start, and the os will get more and more apps from apple over time, atleast i hope thats their plan. I hope they upgrade it with functionality and apps, even as new hardware versions come out, i hope the os and apps continue to be available on all of the versions over the years.
Itunes for windows absolutely sucks. My pc can run crysis at 1920x1080 with evertyhing set to very high except the shaders which is set to high.... but it can barely run itunes.
Itunes is a programming peice of shit. Apple really hates PC users. It shows. It is fucking obvious, and i feel ripped off in that regard. Apple NEVER supports their hardware on the PC, with quality software. It has been that way for a while now. Apple purposely neglects the iTunes software on windows and it is a fucking rip off scam. Its a bait and switch. Buy the hardware, but its a nightmare to use on windows. Just the way Apple wants. It does not at all inspire me to even consider buying a MAC. Its Apple's way of saying "See we told you PCs are slow and bad..." when in reality its Apple playing bullshit. They should be investigated by the feds for it and i'm dead fucking serious.
Youtube and Google maps is incredible on the iphone.
Email needs some more functionality.
The iPhone needs Instant messeging through a native app running in the os (AIM, YAHOO, MSN, etc). Currently you can do it through webpages like meebo.com
I cant open a link in a new window in the browser. You can with a bookmarklet but, not natively in safari. This makes it a pain when browsing because it doesnt cache the pervious page, it seems quite slow when going "back".
There are problems, but overall, if the os is robust enough and there is enough ram and processing power, all it takes is some smart thinking in the ui department to continuously add features and improvements.
Like i said, its a great start. Apple needs to follow through and improve the software both on the iphone, and on windows!!!!!!!!!
Sorry wrote this while on a phone call so i appologize for the jumbled thoughts.
Re:Walled Garden (Score:5, Insightful)
Okay, don't buy one. Apple's responsibility is not to you, the hacker (I love when I get the chance to use that word in the traditional sense), but to the person who buys the device and will never do anything unsupported with it. Why? Because these people either don't want to deal with incompatibilities or problems resulting from an update, or because they can't deal with them.
Normal users don't want to "update their phone" (which is a weird concept to many consumers in the first place) and have it break in some way. Because the official SDK isn't out yet, and there are no guidelines that third-party developers are following, Apple has no realistic way to support their software across updates. Attempting to do so at this point would be a massive, stupid waste of the available time of their engineers.
"Well," you're thinking, "the users who install unsupported third-party apps would be able to deal with bugs, or understand." No, most of them are going to whine and bitch on the Internet like they do now when Apple reverts their phone to a standard, known-good state during an update. But even if I'm wrong about that, it doesn't matter. The responsibility Apple's engineers have to the customer base on the whole is to guarantee that this phone that people bought "just works".
But this presents a problem, right? It makes this amazing portable device only what Apple wants. For some, this is a real issue. You can't disagree with that, really. To solve this problem, you need a supported SDK. And that's coming. Officially. That means developers like me can write software for the iPhone and it won't vanish after an update.
Releasing an SDK means you have to support it. Putting together an SDK you can support, and that is easy for developers to use, takes time. It's not just documentation, which in of itself is a large task if you want it done right--it's API design, build toolchain design, getting the supporting websites together and ready, training your developer support people in the new stuff, etc. It's huge! But Apple is doing it.
For now, third-party software developed through unsupported means is just that: unsupported. In the near future, according to Apple, we'll have a supported means of developing software for the iPhone. And it'll be better software, because we'll have the documentation we need.
There's no "walled garden", just a device whose SDK is in beta somewhere inside Cupertino walls.
Re:Walled Garden (Score:5, Insightful)
I received an iPhone this year as a holiday gift. It's very nice.
The problem is that it's replacing something and I have expectations regarding the something replaced. I'm trying to replace my Palm TX, my cell phone (which was a really old phone) and my iPod (Photo). The only thing the iPhone completely replaces is my cell phone.
Palm has a KISS attitude about their devices and every time they have not stuck to that ethos, they have lost user base. But Palm has always had a SDK released that is based on the assumption that the Palm company cannot possibly know all of the ways someone might want to use their device. I think it's particularly arrogant for Apple to assume that only Apple knows all of the uses someone will want to put their iPhone to. They certainly don't display that kind of arrogance with the Macintosh computer. So, duly chastened, Jobs decided to release the SDK for the iPhone. After this Febuary, I'd say the iPhone (and iPod Touch) will begin to actually become useful.
For those of you who either have Smartphones or Palm devices or Windows Mobile devices, the one thing the iPhone really, really lacks is the ability to cut and paste! I've been using computers since the 1980s and I cannot recall ever not being able to copy material from one place to be used in another place. This ability to write once, use multiple is the hallmark of computing and this is involved in database, word processing, and user interactions both within applications as well as between applications. The iPhone OS must introduce this, and soon.
Until I can cut and paste, my iPhone will not be able to replace my Palm T|X.
Until I can buy, download and install third-party utilities, my iPhone will not be able to replace my Palm T|X.
I don't think my iPhone will fully replace my iPod because my iPhone simply doesn't have enough space on it for my entire music library. But the iPhone is more like an iPod Nano in the sense that one loads a subset of one's library on the iPhone, not the whole magillah.
I am hoping that the iPhone does have hidden capabilities to move beyond AT&Ts Edge network to 3G wireless data. Certainly the European units have this capability, else they won't sell well.
Until then, I shall remain a slightly dissatisfied iPhone user.
Re:Compare to Symbian Signed (Score:5, Insightful)
But as someone else said, Apple will need to protect the non techie users who will go mental if a software upgrade breaks their unit. Moreover, if apps on these things are to become popular with the masses, then there will have to be integration with iTunes, since that is what most people use to manage their iPods. That means that iPod software installation will have to work like podcasts do: you can get them through iTunes with no hassle, and they won't harm your iPod or break with updates. There is really no alternative if it is to become mainstream. If it does, everyone is in for a treat. I'm hoping that excellent Mac shareware companies like Panic will write software for it (if you don't know who Panic are, then shame on you!).
There's no reason why Apple couldn't make the iPod Touch into the new Newton. I'm hoping they will, and the massive black space on the iPod's home screen makes me confident that they will. It already does almost everything you'd want a digital media player to do, so the space can only be taken up with radically extending the use of the device. It's crying out to become a PDA for regular people.
Re:Just need to wait until it's jailbreaked... (Score:5, Insightful)
Cingular and T mobile currently have in place already to assist in e911 location awareness. It triangulates with the use of as many towers and antenna's as it can based on signal levels to each locating modulation unit to give you the location of where you are. Not very accurate in heavily developed cities where skyscrapers block a majority of the signal.
Worked with them before , I went to work at Sun , pretty cool tech.
It's a shame that they chose to use it to provide a service that the iphone really should have already had. Seams like they are trying to give people an app they get a revenue stream from instead of letting you use other available 3rd party apps where they don't profit.
Re:Just need to wait until it's jailbreaked... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Jesus Christ, iPhone is not life or death (Score:5, Informative)
AT&T iPhone 900 minutes + unlimited data + rollover minutes = $85ish after taxes.
As for the 3rd party apps, I'll reserve judgment until after the SDK comes out. Like any half intelligent consumer, I bought the iPhone because I was happy with what it did, out of the box, at the price they charged. I did install the jailbreak + some third party apps on the original OS, but none of them were that useful. When the software update came out I knew it would trash my 3rd party apps but didn't care, so I installed it.
To be honest, I didn't need any of the apps and am not really missing any functionality. I didn't even know there were ways to install 3rd party apps on the newer firmwares, that's how little I care.
Once the SDK comes out and apps are "officially" available I'll take another look and see if there's anything I can't live without.