Hacker creativity drives Apple iPhone innovation
Since the iPhone was born, there’s been a rift in the user community between those who keep the iPhone the way Apple intended, only updating when Apple releases something new. On the flip side, there’s the “jailbreak” community, who has been opening up the iPhone to new applications and uses, though admittedly to the detriment of some user’s phones, for the same amount of time. Whether Apple admits to it or not, the iPhone “hackers” have been responsible for all the recent innovation to the iPhone.
That isn’t really limited to the iPhone; Apple is famous for working off the ideas established by open source programmers. For instance, Virtue Desktops, an open source free app that allowed users to have multiple desktop spaces available, was essentially copied and made better by Apple in the application Spaces for Leopard. I’m not complaining, I assure you.&
With the iPhone, there were tons of games and applications created by “hackers” who wanted users to have the full range of the iPhone platform without all the nuisances of Apple’s limitations. That looked like games, multiple home screens, rearrangeable icons, ringtones, and more.
Far be it from Apple or Steve Jobs to not jump on an opportunity to release the ideas of others in a more streamlined, secure format to the general public (just ask Xerox). In the wake of those hacks, look how closely Apple’s updates have paralleled the works of the hacking community.That isn’t to say Apple is wrong for doing so; it just goes to prove that open source platforms and “hacking” or creativity as some like to call it are a necessity, and the companies that follow that community’s lead will benefit.
Let’s face it: all the users who never jailbroke their iPhones are holding their noses high because Apple came around with the innovations in a secure form, but without those revolutionaries, there is a very good chance the majority of users wouldn’t have the features in their iPhones they now do.
Keep on jailbraking and pushing the limits, oh programmers and vigilantes. We who wait patiently for Apple’s updates thank you for your creativity and willingness to break the rules.
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January 27th, 2008
I think Apple should just take the iPhone off the market and let the retard hackers figure out how to do the R&D, the engineering, the capital investment, build the factories, manufacture the thing, and then ship it to places people can buy it.
No, instead the “hacking community” sits in their parents basements and waits for real engineers, marketers, and factory managers to actually produce the product. Then the losers, er I mean hackers, start their campaign of bashing the product because it doesn’t do this or doesn’t do that. Their main job is emptying the garbage at the local fast food restaurant for $6.50/hr but hey, they’re the experts, right. They know what the public wants.
As the Fake Steve Jobs would say, “Siooma! you frigtards!”
January 27th, 2008
You should probably act upon your own suggestion… go ahead and actually ASK Xerox. They will tell you what Apple paid, so you can stop living under the misconception that anything was “stolen”.
January 27th, 2008
If Apple would just give us the phone and let us to what we wanted with it, we could all live in harmony
January 27th, 2008
Please – you do this logic tap dance from multiple desktops? That’s a OS feature that long, long precedes Vitue Desktop..
January 28th, 2008
Hacking is cool, hacking can be harmful, however it is important and necessary… however
Apple had always planned to open up the iPhone, but the thing was all the cry baby developers got out their hankies early.
If you look at technology, nobody ever releases a fully finished, “PERFECT” product. There will be updates, both minor & major to systems, hardware (firmware) and so on … if or when companies wait to release the perfect product – it would never happen, because someone else would beat them to market or the company would run out of money, lose focus, etc…
Multiple desktops in OS 10.5 is probably one of the coolest new features, though it has been around for ever in Unix OSes… also there have been 3rd party add-ons that will give you a similar effect.
I’ll probably buy an Apple iPhone under the AT&T plan when my current plan expires in October.