“Google Code is hosting the first third-party native application ever for the iPhone. A real full-fledged iPhone application with a graphic user interface and its own icon in the iPhone home screen. Yes, this is not a Web 2.0 app but the real thing,” Jesus Diaz reports for Gizmodo.
“The application is MobileTerminal, ‘a terminal emulator application for the iPhone,'” Diaz reports.
“While most iPhone users won’t find a terminal emulator exciting, there are plenty of reasons to get thrilled about this development. First and foremost, this is the first iPhone native graphical application done without an official SDK from Apple (there are others, but they are low-level.) This means that hackers are steady at work trying to do useful stuff with the JesusPhone beyond unlocking it and that more applications will follow,” Diaz reports.
“Second, if Google Code is hosting this it probably means either that 1) Apple is giving the nod to this kind of development, 2) they are going to release an SDK or 3) Apple will realize the need for people to access the iPhone as a development platform to do really cool stuff with it. All three options are good for me,” Diaz reports. “And finally, and most important, we can only hope that someone develops ScummVM and MAME, two game emulation platforms, soon. I want unlimited classic arcade games and Monkey Island in my iPhone. Now.”
Full article, with links and video of the application in use, here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “RadDoc” for the heads up.]
There is no official agreement with AT&T about the SDK. Nope.
Apple’s refusal is based almost wholly on iPhone security. As they gain more real-world experience, they will eventually release an SDK that builds in security from top to bottom. We’re still in the trial phase, where Apple is carefully watching what users and hackers are up to. (This is also true for the AppleTV.)
Why the caution? If there’s one thing that can kill the iPhone for not just business but also consumer adoption, it would be a lack of security. NOBODY wants to live through the Windows experience again. Lack of 3G, lack of 5MP+ camera, lack of local file storage, lack of voice input, lack of video camera, lack of MMS; none of that can kill the iPhone, but lack of security would.
and I guess maybe underneath that sarcasm, you think so too.
As I mentioned many times before, I own 6 Mac computers (well, me and the wife and all the kids)… We all have iPods.,
I do hope the iPhone does well. I even hope to buy a future version of it. But as it is now, I simply believe that it’s not worth that they are asking for it. It is missing too many “basic features” (NOTE: This is the point where the MDN fanboys start with “yeah, it doesn’t grate cheese either, hahahaha”) , it has no voice dialing (very important to me as I travel a lot), it doesn’t push mail on any service except “Yahoo”, the network sucks BAD (Yeah, I tried one a friend on mine bought the 2nd day), so on and so forth..
To me, the iPhone has tremendous POTENTIAL. The interface is it’s key feature and something to build on. But I’m not impressed by “It’s really Gorgeous”….
So I hope Apple builds on the foundation that is iPhone. But at this moment, I’m sorry. It’s not in the same league as a Blackberry or N95. Not even close… (that Sir, is my opinion. Around here, having an opinion makes you a Microsoft agent or a spy sent by Ballmer)..
@aldebaran: Did you have a data plan before the iPhone?
Apple’s refusal is based almost wholly on iPhone security.
Hmm. The Mac OS X SDK hasn’t hurt Mac security at all. As the iPhone IS running Mac OS X, Apple’s position here makes no sense.
A few possibilities here:
1. The AT&T contract is that stringent. It’d be bad business to piss off your only carrier…
2. This is another example of Steve’s ideal of a fully-closed consumer device. Only select engineers at Apple have internal access to it.
3. Apple is trying to make reverse engineering as hard as possible, thus slowing the clones. Questionable because MS is a complete wreck right now, and it’s hard to see anyone else taking the risks.
The way this is going I’m wondering if iPhone wasn’t code-named “Roswell”!
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”raspberry” style=”border:0;” /> What’s behind the screen that Apple doesn’t want us to see?
No SKYPE? next.
An iPhone is not a Mac. Although both have a common base in OS X, the iPhone does not contain lots of OS parts that are in the Mac.
The iPhone is closer in pedigree to the iPod, which was closed except it had an open file system. Now the iPhone has added an always-connected nature over both cell and wifi, and Apple has chosen to close its file system.
Apple still views the iPhone as consumer electronics, not as a general-purpose computer. We know it really is a general-purpose computer, if it only had more software. In time, Apple will get to where we want it to be. So keep asking for it, and when Apple feels confident that its security is as good as it needs to be, I think we’ll see the SDK.
By the way, if people hack into the iPhone, and put software on, I don’t think that bothers Apple. Apple just doesn’t want the average joe to think its okay to put other software on, and then have that lead to crashes and stolen information.
And in other news, AT&T’s entire wireless network has NOT crashed due to this.
I agree. Some people will never, ever be satisfied. When they get a car, they start to customize it. They buy a computer to see how they can improve it. They buy a house and start to plan additions. These people can never actually enjoy anything. I pity them.
It must be nice to be a mindless lemming, always satisfied with your world as it is, never trying to improve yourself or anything else.