Sunday, July 19, 2009

For the people, by the people: iPhone

Apple has gotten many of its ideas for iPhone OS directly from the community itself, and that also means from the iPhone Dev Team, and the jailbreak community. Here's a list I've compiled of applications and ideas that Apple got from them.
Note: keep in mind that not all of these are 100% accurate, it may just be a coincidence that apple did the exact same thing that the community had already done.

1) The Appstore: Installer existed long ago in the days of firmware 1.1.1, and although support has been dropped for it by it's developers for a while now, cydia has effectively replaced it.

2) Original iPhone Applications on the iPod Touch: Remember back in the 1.x.x firmwares when the iPod Touch only had a few applications? Remember when mail, weather, maps, photos, stocks, and notes where iPhone ONLY? The community added those applications to the iPod Touch at least 2 firmware versions before Apple did.

3) Voice Notes: Yes, voice notes was on repositories long before it made its way to your home screen.

4) Add events in the iPod touch calendar: Yes, that was on jailbroken devices way before it was official

5) Video Recording: Cycorder and other applications in Cydia had video recording long before the 3GS came out, where do you think apple got it from?

More will be added here when I think of it. Right now I dont have my iPhone in front of me to help me remember.

Now dont get my wrong, Apple had a few original ideas of their own. On 1.1.3 they enabled the wiggle feature to move applications and delete weblinks, which of course extended to deleting applications.

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