ThirdPartyApplications
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The iPhone gets third party apps for third party hardware, but the proprietary SDKs make the future sad
Leave it to Apple to make the process of building software to work with new third party iPhone hardware sound like some Kafkaesque nightmare. Here's the basic gist of it: Apple, just like always, has to approve any third party hardware that plugs into one of its iOS devices over the 30-pin dock connector. What's new is that before only the first party manufacturer could build software that works with that hardware, but now Apple is allowing that manufacturer to act as a gatekeeper for third party apps that would interoperate with its hardware. That means exciting times for app developers that are raring to mix with the likes of Line 6's MIDI Mobilizer (pictured) and AKAI's SynthStation 25, but it's also a far cry from the land of computers where anybody can build a plug-and-play USB MIDI device, and anybody can build software that speaks to it. It also means juggling proprietary SDKs, NDAs, and other agreements, which could become very difficult for developers if or when the hardware availability balloons. Hopefully we can get something more elegant before it comes to that. Hit up the source link for an in-depth discussion of this issue.
Estimating the Jailbreak population for iPhone and iPod touch
iPhone Atlas posts that AppSnapp, the 1.1.1 jailbreak site, has been used more than 1 million times. Now, of course, that does not mean that there are more than 1 million jailbroken iPhones and iPod touches out there, it just means that the procedure has been run that many times. I know that my two units account for at least a dozen uses of the site but I'm guessing that I'm at the high end of per-unit applications of the exploit. For some additional numbers on jailbreak penetration, turn to Shaun Erickson's blog. Shaun runs STE Packaging, one of the two main iPhone software repositories. His top 25 downloads list is headed by OpenSSH, with almost a half million downloads, and Apollo IM with 350,000. Multiple downloads (an important consideration after firmware upgrades and system restores) may be offset by the fact that not every user downloads every package. It looks like it's fairly safe to say that several hundred thousand units have been jailbroken and are running third party applications. The AppSnapp site suggests even higher numbers. Since the exploit is limited to the 1.1.1 firmware, it eliminates having to account for re-downloads due to firmware upgrades. Thanks Drudge
Blizzard posts a Voice Chat FAQ
European CM Salthem has posted a Frequently Asked Questions about the new voice chat feature coming in the next patch (which has got to be just around the corner, right?). There's not much new here, but there is a lot of Blizzard confirming what players have already discovered about the voice chat system. People will be one-click mute-able, and voice chat will be able to be disabled by Parental Controls. Blizzard also makes a few interesting points about bandwidth-- while they say voice chat won't have a big effect on those with high bandwidth connections, they say people who currently experience high latency will likely have bigger problems.And perhaps most disappointingly, they almost sound apologetic about the quality of the sound. They recommend multi-thread processors (as if that's something someone can really upgrade to without getting a whole new computer), and they acknowledge that third party applications will likely have much better quality.Not that their voice chat system is bad-- as I've said before (and as we found out in the voice chat survey), lots of players will definitely use it. But third party applications aren't going away anytime soon either.
