ApolloIM
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ApolloIM and MobileChat join forces
Both ApolloIM and MobileChat were jailbreak applications for chatting on the go with your iPhone/iPod touch. Alex Schaefer, ApolloIM's founder, has recently joined the MobileChat development team. In a blog posting by the developer of MobileChat, he said that both applications underwent "friendly competition" and that, while there was no clear winner in the iPhone IM business, users got the benefit from the ongoing competition. Now that Alex has joined the other team, you can expect that MobileChat will only get better. The post goes on to mention that Alex will be working on stability and user experience for the application. MobileChat definitely got off to a rough start on launch day due to server problems, but seems to be working much better now.
ApolloIM creator interviewed on iPhone development
Chris F was kind enough to send along his long (and dare I say, a little silly-- look at that "cupcake deliciousness growth over time" graph at the bottom) interview with Alex Schafer, creator of what Erica called "the first native IM client for the iPhone," ApolloIM. After a short chat about the game that's got my vote for Game of the Year, Portal, they get into how Alex does his developing and how ApolloIM came together.He calls IM the "one glaring omission from the iPhone," and says that while they're taking their time making sure things are just right (not to mention that he's got the sword over his head of third-party development), they're planning to come up with a product that fills that role of IM on the iPhone. Whatever Apple's plan for third parties turns out to be (Schafer says he's hoping for at least a socket and "20k of r/w space" for Apollo to work), he says his team is doing as much in advance as they can.Definitely an interesting interview to check out. I hope Schafer gets his 20k and more-- instant messenging is definitely the thing I miss most on the iPhone as well.
iPhone 101: You've got iPhone or iPod touch jailbreak! What next?
You've run the TIFF exploit jailbreak and your iPhone or iPod touch now has Installer.app on your main page. So now what? Here are some tips and ideas for you. Add Community Sources. Most third party applications are found under Community Sources in Installer.app. Until you add this feature, you won't see most of the dozens and dozens of available applications from repositories like SMXY and Conceited Software. Try out some great apps. My personal favorites include my own Voice Notes recorder (for iPhone only), Apollo IM instant messaging client, and Mobile Colloquy for irc. There are productivity apps, games, and utilities, all available for your mobile device. Add direct file access. Install the BSD subsystem and (in Community Sources) Open SSH (both from NerveGas). Once you've installed ssh, you can use any sftp client to transfer files onto and off of your unit. On the Mac, you can also install MacFuse and sshfs to gain Finder access to your units. Remember that the new iPhone and iPod touch 1.1.1 password is "alpine", not "dottie". Many GUI sftp clients may not see the entire directory tree. In this case, you may want to enable afc2. Know when things go wrong. The latest Installer.app has been hammered by new users. If you get a "package" error when trying to install, just do a re-install. You may need to uninstall first, depending on the progress when things failed. If you touch an app icon and it launches, pauses and quits, make sure you've installed the BSD subsystem. Failing to install BSD is the number one reason most app launches fail. Know about restoring. If you ever change your mind about a jailbreak, just restore your iPhone or iPod touch using iTunes. Assuming you haven't unlocked, your iPhone or touch will be identical to one shipped from a factory.When things slow down A number of people have reported system slow-downs after jailbreaking. Unfortunately, a roughly equal number have reported the same problem without jailbreaking. If this happens to you, just restore your iPhone or touch and re-jailbreak.OMG, OMG, OMG restore failed This isn't that uncommon. Try restoring again once or twice. If iTunes fails to see the iPod or iPhone, google for iphuc dfu mode.
Beta Beat: Apollo IM leaves alpha, enters beta
%Gallery-6860% On the iPhone front, the Apollo Instant Messenger application has left alpha and debuted this morning with a usable beta. This new beta works well enough that you can carry on multiple conversations and it feels like real software rather than a proof of concept. There are still several missing features. As our gallery shows, the buddy info feature isn't quite there yet and you still cannot add buddies on the fly--that feature should appear soon as Apollo IM integrates libpurple functionality. Also as you can see, the little red badge that tells you how many unread messages you've received (a la SMS and Mail) isn't working quite right yet. Quibbles aside, this is a big step forward for native IM.
Apollo IM does native AIM for the iPhone
IM capability is at or near the top of many (dare we say most?) smartphone users' lists of must-have features, so if anything, we're a little shocked it took this long for a native IM client for the iPhone to find its way into the public domain. Apollo IM is in the early stages of development at this point, buggy (by the developer's own admission) and capable of supporting AIM alone; future revisions, though, promise to deliver a full fledged product with support for the typical range of notifications and services. Click on to grab it if you dare![Via Boy Genius Report]
iPhone double header: First native IM client AND first native IRC released
Big news today on the iPhone development front. This morning brings the release of both a native instant messaging client and a native IRC client. Apollo IM just entered Version Negative 1, an early beta release. It is available as well via Installer.app. Apollo IM has been developed by "Arminius" and offers iPhone-native instant messaging capabilities. Future releases will support file transfer as well as MSN/Yahoo/Jabber/Gtalk support. "Pogi"'s iRCm provides a GUI-based Internet Relay Chat client for your iPhone. You can join channels, issue raw IRC commands and take part in conversations. iRCm is available for download at Google Code, and packages have been loaded for both Installer.app and PXL. Both applications have been developed with Shimmer/PXL, the iPhone auto-updates library. Shimmer allows iPhone code to "call home" and update themselves when new versions become available. Both developers are looking for feedback and plan to use this update feature to allow the program to keep growing via its installed base. If you're interested in developing for either application, pop over to Google Code and download the latest SVN. Both projects offer a great opportunity to get involved in open source.Thanks to Dylan Kenney%Gallery-6412%
