When it comes right down to it , what makes me pitiful is that my iPhone is actually , in many ways , less utile today than it was yesterday . And no , before you require , that ’s not because my iPhone was among the many that have been “ bricked ” because I unlocked it with third - political party computer software . But what I did have on my iPhone was a handful of third - party coating that are now pining for the fjords after iPhone update 1.1.1 .
This is perhaps how the last of the dinosaurs felt . Thursday break of the day , there were dozens of wild new programs being educate for the iPhone ; on Friday , while those programs are not necessarily stagnant , their hereafter certainly looks as bleak as if the humans was blanketed in a thick heaping pelage of volcanic ash .
I started experimenting with set up third - party apps about six week into possess my iPhone , and I saw the view develop from a handful of covering that required delving deeply into the Terminal to anastounding catalog of programsthat could be installed as easily as if Apple had blessed them itself . Scrolling throughNullriver ’s Installer.appin the past few weeks has actually become dull , if only because there were so many applications available that you just did n’t have time to watch them all out .
And it was n’t all just games and time - wasting fallal , either . Third - political party apps saved my Baron Verulam a few fourth dimension when Apple had n’t provided a answer to a job at paw . For example , as someone who writes extensively about the iPhone , would n’t it be nice if involve a screenshot of the telephone set ’s UI was , well , possible?Snap2Albummay not have been the easiest - to - use programme ever , but you could n’t debate that it worked . Now , it ’s manifestly back to assume semi - foggy characterisation with my digital camera and ( in a pinch ) my MacBook ’s iSight .
And what about the time where , for no apparent reason , my iPhone arrest being recognized by Image Capture and iPhoto ? You see , while iTunes does back up context from your iPhone , for some bizarre reason that does n’t include any of the word-painting that you ’ve taken with the iPhone ’s camera . Without having installed SSH , I would have had no way of retrieve the more than 300 photograph I ’d taken without due east - mail each one to myself individually . As it was , I just logged into the iPhone and downloaded them all to my desktop in a pair of moment .
Just last week , my colleague Rob Griffiths wrote an fervid supplication , asking Apple not to break third - political party applications . I like to think that Apple ’s not just taking a worldly-minded stance on this so it can milk more money from their user . I trust it has a better principle than that . I bring in the companionship might be concerned that a single app could bust up a phone , but in the months of hacking , pretty much the only bricked phones I ’ve realise have been because of , well , Apple .
The truth was that the aboriginal app community was the most exciting thing going in not just the iPhone reality , but pretty much the entire sphere of Apple . Plenty of Mac programmers who were emotional about the prospect of writing for the iPhone turned their attention to hacking by at apps while waiting for Leopard to ship . And yet , Apple willfully ignored these developments , even to the period of build itself see ridiculous . Like when , at the iPod event earlier this calendar month , Steve Jobs waxed enthusiastic about the iPhone Facebook internet app ; it was kind of like hear to someone rave about how zeppelins will change air change of location perpetually .
Look , we lie with Apple ; that ’s not survive to change . The ship’s company is innovational , it ’s cool , and it make great product . But what construct those merchandise great is what you may do with them . And today I can do less with my iPhone than I could yesterday .
Sure , I love the novel shortcuts and hole , and I ’ve already said that I think theiTunes Wi - Fi Music Store is a slayer app , but why ca n’t I have thatandmy third - party apps ? And ringtones ? ( Do n’t even get me started on ringtones . ) I ’m not saying that the third - party window is closed always . If nothing else , I ’ve long learned not to depend against human ingenuity , so I hold out hope that the hackers will find a way around whatever Apple ’s done to lock down the iPhone . Maybe the folks at Nullriver will have an update to Installer.app within years , making all these lamentations and rending of garments moot .
Until then , I guess I ’ll just have to console myself with the fact that I can now polish off the spacebar double to type a space and a time period . That would be extremely useful in Instant Messag — oh . Never listen .
