Am I the only person with an iPhone that hasn’t at least tried to Jailbreak (read: hack) it? Nearly everyone one I know that has an iPhone, and is at least somewhat geeky, has tried to hack their iPhone to get third-party applications up and running on it.
My iPhone, is one of these
Photo credit: Erik Kastner
Sure, it seems like a fun little project (especially now with only needing to visit jailbreakme.com on an iPhone) to crack your phone and install all sorts of neat tweaks and full applications that let you do interesting things – but so far it has seemed unappealing to me.
Most of the applications that I’ve seen has been from me messing around with someone else’s iPhone. However, with that little bit of experience I’ve seen that most of the applications currently available were not applications that I felt warranted me hacking my iPhone. Don’t get me wrong – I think it is really cool that you can use Terminal, Remote Desktop, Apache, and a whole slew of other applications in the palm of your hand – but I don’t need those applications in my palm of my hand.
So, perhaps for most of the people that have installed some of these applications, games, and fun user-interface tweaks it has been a matter of entertainment. They figured they could, so why not? But I think that starting in February/March of 2008 we’re going to see much more refined applications that have value to nearly all iPhone users rather than just a small portion of those that like to edit configuration files on remote servers while eating dinner at a restaurant.
iPhone application wish list
What do I see coming? I’m sure my imagination isn’t powerful nor creative enough to speculate but I can say what I’d like to see. Here is a short list of the things I’d like to do with my iPhone:
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Contact sharing via Bluetooth to iPhone and non-iPhone alike.
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The ability to delete all photos!
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File system access via Safari for file upload processes.
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Quick, easy, screenshots. Skitch mobile?
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Hack Safari and add a better cache!
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When on wifi; be able to stream music from other iPhones/iTunes.
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Oh, I almost forgot. Flash that doesn’t rob battery. (I know, a pipe dream).
Useful applications for the masses will be available on the iPhone in short order and I’m looking forward to it. Any experience the developers of the applications that are already in existence can gather before an official SDK is released in February will only make them better – so I am ok with letting everyone else work the bugs out for me. Strange, I’m normally an early adopter, but this time I’ve decided to sit it out and watch the others play.
Have you hacked your iPhone? Have you found any compelling applications? What would you like to see next year?
