A Small Army

“With each new version of the iPhone operating system, a small army of independent programmers and hackers get to work prying it open, removing restrictions and making their iPhones do things that Apple CEO Steve Jobs never intended.”
- CNN

Like many of you, the stories of the first (hardware) jailbreak by GeoHot is old news. What some of us may not realize is how even if we aren’t officially apart of the dev-team, We support that “small army of independent programmers and hackers” and for most of us are even apart of it. Though some of us are simple end users, We are the ones who test the jailbreaks, help come up with ideas/apps/theme, and mainly help push the jailbreak to others. We support the ‘guest’ who comes in (to IRC/Forums) and need help. So if that doesn’t make us just as much apart of the community as the who standing knee deep in code trying to free the baseband, then try to continue without us. Our community is strong and we continue to grow stronger as we adapt each other’s ideas we learn, we explore, and grow together as one.  Together our common goals have become ever stronger and the game of “cat and mouse” have laid in our favor (mostly), the technology is already out allows us to continue to update, ie: Pwnage Tool, to staying unlocked or even just jailbroken.

The iPhone and its App Store not only gave birth to a new digital frontier for mobile software, but created an entire underground ecosystem: the Jailbreak community.
- CNN

We are that ecosystem and we are growing. We might never be mentioned but we are a part of the team, We are the Community, the Street team, the Dev-team, the Ecosystem and This is Our Legacy.

Read the whole article at:
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/11/jailbreak-community/

Keep up the good work everybody ^_^

- Until Next Post…
The iPhwn Blogger  (iPB)

Trendy

Everybody does it (everybody does it, yeah)
And I wonder why don’t you (why don’t you)
Everybody… everybody does it… (c’mon everybody)
Maybe you should too (c’mon on)
‘Cause you don’t wanna be left out
You wanna be cool
One of us, One of us
One of us, One of

Got to love music sometimes, its always an easy way to get the point across wouldn’t you agree.. The Community has developed an interesting trend among the others that I started on my last post. Since the majority of us that are truly active in the community use IRC (Internet Relay Chat) to communication instantly, for such things of chatting all the way to problem solving and developing, I’d like to bring attention the trend that seems to be occurring. From before the release of 2.0 the two biggest channels as far as users would be the #iPhone channels in OSX86 (hackint0sh) and EFNet, Even ModMyi (‘iPhone’ and then ‘iFone’ at the time) both hosting their own types of people. As time went on, Users started to mix a lot more and start to define their placement on the internet and try and reach across networks. You will noticed while the ModMyi channel has died down a lot the users of it are still dedicated to it and the main website is still filled with users and very active. EFNet has recently been moved to control of the channels founders and takening away from David who was formally owner of Sleepers.net (AKA the place which BigBoss originated, both website & on EFNet) and returned to the new owners who, according to them always owned it. The blend in the IRC networks over the last few months have been increased greatly and while the known people who usually stood their own networks still might do so, a majority of them in addition to those users who are considered regulars, usually voiced or oped in one channel or another, have moved and expanded into all the networks. In the EFNet, OSX86, Saurik, Chronic-Dev, along with a few other IRC Networks the users in such can be matched across networking. There is a serious trend going on for the users that is giving reason to go cross network, I know I was one of the first to be on every network and people who ask me and the reasoning behind that would be so that I could have certain problems fixed faster and more accurately, if it was a stupid problem I could ask anyone, if i had a respring loop (common back in the day) I could go talk to BigBoss. If there was a problem with a jailbreak or found glitch maybe I was in ModMyi cause the users there used to test jailbreak and I helped back in 1.1.1 era. Which to me I still believe was my favorite for the community thus far. This community it seems to me, is starting to grow closer and the trend of channels mixing and users being cross IRC networks is such evidence of such. Through such cross networking the users are becoming closer and random people that come into channels are more likely to have their problems fixed because they are now surrounded by people who, in fact, know what they are doing and can successfully help that user.

Dear Community,
You’re doing an excellence job,
Keep up the great work <3 I mean it.
-iPhwn Blogger

Together we are making the iPhone ‘Underground’  (if you will) into what it is today and our strives and creativity to make not only the jailbreak methods but everything to the simple themes and complex applications really help the community become something amazing.

- Until Next Post…
The iPhwn Blogger  (iPB)

Just when all hope is lost..

It usually happens around that time, the time we thought “all hope was lost”. Though that statement makes little to no sense, It’s something I am going to stick with. Because the drama will continue as Sam said and the hope will go up and down for some depending on their interested and their willingness to wait and over come that ‘bad’. As most of you know Geohot has recently come out with an unlock for the newest baseband version 05.11.07 that he has entitled Blacksn0w. (Go figure..) Yet, there was something that he did that made me have a change of heart for the guy. Never have I been a big fan of Geohot and his work, though good it just wasnt my ..style. But as he posted recently in his blog: “I have an unlock for 05.11.07. I will be releasing on 11/04/09, for $0.00.” What might be strange to some about that is the $$ part, Geohot among other devs was offered $10,000 USD to sell an unlock method for the 05.11.07 baseband to “Jody Sanders” (Mentioned by the Dev-Team 10 months ago) with exclusive rights so Jody could resell it. The blog posts Geohot explains the “scum” such websites are that charge to unlock devices. A proud day in the community having every 3.x firmware & baseband the ability to be not only jailbroken but also unlocked. It is good to see the relationship between the community still stands strong even through the drama and how Geohot and the Dev-Team posted blog posts about a common goal and (indirectly) remembering their roots.

So Geohot, Thank you for stay true to yourself and the community. You are a Good Man.

Trends & a Little History: It seems every now trends seem to develope, Some of you might remember back before 2.0′s release in Nov of 2007, there was a developer by the name of Sean Heber decided to take on a project he entitled iApp-a-Day. This project entailed Sean creating one app every day for the month of November 2007. Though these applications weren’t exactly anything to make you go crazy, the dedication Sean showed was, at least to me, amazing. The era of 1.x was one of very undeveloped users attempting to set stands on the device, creating apps more of proof-of-concept than actual useability. These apps where usually very simple but found a way to be somewhat mind-blowing since such things have never been seen on mobile devices before.
The 2.x era was also one interesting, from the start a lot of developers had to choose their sides, especially since the developer agreement Apple had written made it illegal to do such things. Customization was something that also started to take a standard with the loose of Null River and Summerboard and eventually installer the community turned to anyone that cold step up, this person – deemed by some the iPhone GodFather had created Cydia to help move the community into a more solid Winterboard though simply, became the new standard and gave the developer full control over the team and lose of majority of the 1.x because of their different frame work. The trend of 2.x seemed to be useful apps that Apple would accept along with core modification and willingness of getting away from Apple’s standard usage grew.
In 3.x this became very evident. With the teams of developers starting to grow, and new ones arriving and failing shortly after it become very interesting who was legit. The Dev-Team posted blog posts along with twitted about such  people along with Geohot challenging them to come forth and show what they have discovered but not a lot could deliver. Which would lead to the reason Geohot & Dev-Team’s tools are the only two being used. While users wanted to get away from the standard usage of the device, with the new 3.x firmware such possibilities become possible getting away from just categories as icons that could take a long while to load. PogoPlank, one of my favorites, got away from the “everyday” usage of icons and made  a wheel which stayed to the side with folders that could be open, these folders where custom populated with apps by the user and launched instantly off of springboard. Wasting no time at all. A few concepts were also released, iPhone Expose Concept was eventually brought to life by a different developer. Many developers came up with concepts and even applications with how the home screen should be setup. Some had gone as far as creating Widgets that ran on top of everything just like on a Mac. The era of the iPhone is about customization, like it was in its first generation but with a lot more power. What will also be release running on 3.x, who knows, the one thing I do know is that it will be powerful, pretty cool, and a lot better than anything the AppStore can stir up.

- Until Next Post…
The iPhwn Blogger  (iPB)

At least someones reading..

I been here before the whole iphone stuff started, been a founder of the dev team, first generation dev, first time iphone unlcoker etc. and somehow one of the figures who started this hacking hype even.

But I been before with OSx86 adn other projects. What can I tell? Communitys of this size always evolute in the one or another direction. Every project has its community if its just a little bit successful and the consist of people, form everywhere, with diffrent social and cultural backgroudns etc.. Everyone is diffrent and liek in real life, you can never expect, sadly, a total unity.

Troubles and drama happen. It’s just in the nature of people that it does. It cannot be stopped, I tried and sometimes even caused new drama while trying.

I.e. take the split geohot made from the dev team. Infact I had the pleasuring task to kick him out on a vote from others after he published our research as his own in his manifest. He is everything but not a team player, foudn new people and made hismelf a name. His goal and character were diffrent, rivalship happened and see … split, drama and hate.

Another example, see the current generation of dev team. Most of them joined the scene as elite team with zibri, which I had the pleasure to ban from IRC and who started drama we are so closed. After that he founded elite team, stoel their work and made a lot of money on their back. People from Elite team united back in dev team and are now what I would call the second generation.

New people come and leave. It’s a social thing, and problems and drama are a fixed constant in social live. You cannot united a that big community, it will never work as one. But competition also causes varity and a bit of motivation even, not the worst thing to have sometimes.

-Sam [via hackint0sh]

Forums are also a great way of communication, in this case one of the founders of it all himself, Sam, had a response to the last post which I have posted above. The truth behind his argument is always going to be true. Noone will every unite completely together nor will they be one. But this community is in need of a tool that can work across all platforms and all set ups and the real question is when will someone step forward from one team and say hey let me directly help you with this entire thing so that we can ..unlock 5.11 or jailbreak this or fix that.. Yes, do NOT get me wrong there is a lot of supporting each other in this community and it is something awesome so why cannot we just take it that one step future and bond a little.

I believe the reason that some have started doing the dev is lost, we are at an era in this community where “anyone can make a jailbreak” haven’t you noticed this? From legit pwnagetool and redsn0w to the unseen greenp0isen and very questionable sn0wbreeze some of these tools are starting to get ridiculous, and if you read what the dev-team has said about them, they could just mess up someone who wants to unlock in the future’s chances of doing so. In Cydia we are also at a point where designers/coders are trying to reinvent the wheel, and I do believe that PogoPlank did that, but when categories is being made two more times after such and cover flow is being adapted in ways that copy other’s concepts you want to know how original some are trying to be. The iPhone app/modification developers have been doing an amazing job, some are choosing to make a few bucks between apps -which is respectable, they put so much work into such ‘products’ that they deserve the right to make some money. But if you remember back in 2.0 when others wanted to make money, they simply made the switch and conformed to Apple’s rules.

 

I feel like a lot I will be posting on this blog will be taken wrong and so I’d like to take a second to clarify. I am one who is part of the community, very active in fact. I know most of you and we have a strong relationship. I have little to no disrespect for you nor the things you are doing, but in fact believe what you are doing is greatly helping this community and you deserve all the thanks you sometimes do not receive.

 

Isn’t it amazing how sometimes, you can think “hey, its … let me ask him a quick question” and especially when its someone who is a big part of this community the pain that it takes to communicate with such a person. And then sometimes you even get a chance to talk to such person but they are not exactly the nicest people in the word. (I’m not going into that one- some of you guys really have no respect for your followers) Yet, one of the dev-team’s most active people is MuscleNerd, he I will say is a great guy and I’d like to thank him for all the help he has given to me and others in the past (yes, CPICH is also helpful and posixninja and more- You are not forgotten). It seems to me that the community especially in OSX86 has forgotten that the point of the channel is to help the dev-team, who cannot always help others, to actually help and guide others. Yet, you just complain that theres too many noobs in the channel and everyone is just annoying. Yes maybe thats true but at what point do you actually stop and help them, when they have a problem you feel like dealing with? Someone needs to come out with a jailbreak method or guide or addon that can walk newb users through it, so you can cut down on wasted time. Instead of just complaining. Saurik’s IRC channel is full of noobs but the people in there are simply there to help. The iPhone channel in EFNet is one of particular interest to me since the users are pretty much always just messing around and less then willing to help, except if you come when a user is bored or willing..

The community can be stronger then it is now.

Also does anyone know what happen to planetbeing, xpwn seems to be lost without him, hopefully all is good with him, I know he doesn’t leave for work randomly be it seems he has been gone longer then usual. And for that matter what happen to Sleepers, I guess without BigBoss it slowly died, I heard david actually gave it away, guess everyone must die sometime. Bye Geohot, see yea later.

I will admit, the challenges over twitter to help get stuff done and sometimes argue are very enjoyable. Thank You.

- Until Next Post…
The iPhwn Blogger  (iPB)

The fun begins..

And so the fun begins ..Before I get started I’d like to introduce myself, but I will not. I’d like to tell you who I am, but I will not. So with that you can just call me as you please, iPB maybe? Some might start to question my position, my authority to write what I do, and say what I know, but what will be posted here will be simply posted around facts, will take no sides and will NOT tell you how to jailbreak, this isn’t google I cannot answer such questions. In fact BigBoss and ModMyi have been doing a great job doing such since they launched what would be the point of such posts, the news is already out there iClarified is a great website for such news along with the standard sites like Engadget and so forth. That is NOT what this is, its a blog about the iPhone Community, not just the devices but about the people who have such a big hand in keeping such devices free from Apple. The people who deserve the respect and the thanks.

As you look around you can easily find iphone blogs, blogs saying buy my app, blogs that will tell you of my cool jailbreak method and see how many other people can copy the dev-team in their efforts to jailbreak yet have little success when it comes to unlocking the baseband. These people are imitation, coders not hackers. Their applications may be all they are meant to but aren’t a jailbreak method and that is something you must understand. A lot of you, I’m sure follow MuscleNerd’s Twitter and have noticed between him and Geohot and Chronic, BigBoss, and so many others there becomes some drama, some question, and worthless protection over what they have accomplished. This blog is a little more down to earth then those who are marketing themselves, I have nothing to sell you.

Point Is: The community should support each other not compete now don’t get me wrong a little friend composition has never hurt anyone, but once you forget its you against apple, not against the other developers then you too are not much better than Apple themselves. Given the fact that some things need to be kept private between the public (apple) and the dev, there is no reason in my eyes for a member of one team to not help another. And quite frankly all the drama that has happen is just disgraceful. And the users in #iPhone – OSX86 have made it even worse, some of it is not even developer related and very disgraceful.

The community doesn’t need your bullshit.

Why do we separate ourselves into teams – to compete against each other? – No.
How come one way is never good enough for the other? – We can mix.
Can we always do better?
…Now I KNOW you will comment on my post and tell me thats the way it is, people this .. people that .. but that is not an excuse – Trust me I Do NOT Care, Facts are Facts.

Has anyone ever taken the time to look into the different styles of jailbreak, how could such teams work together? There is no prize at the end guys not for the devs, only for other users to be able to break free apple’s chains …wasn’t that the goal from the start … so please tell me:

Where has that goal gone? Can we BREAK FREE.

Remember this blog is NOT a fight, it is not drama it is pure fact. I am the window to the underground, the man hole from top the earth looking down into this community conveying the truth since noone else can speak up. I do not wish to insult nor to fight. This community is of some of the smartest and gracious people, spending their valuable time to make my phone something free.

I am sure I can speak for thousands when I say,
Thank You.

- Until Next Post…
The iPhwn Blogger  (iPB)

[P.S.]
I tend to link random words to the owner or meaning of such, the difference with me as you /might/ have notice is mine more times then none goes to Google. Why? Because you all are more then capable of using the “Google Machine”  and I will always encourage this. Also don’t be surprised if some words do not match and back link to something of same context. My blog. My Rules.