There are so many tools, some for Mac OS, others for Windows, different versions... Complicated. So let's summerize a little bit.
If you have iPhone 3G, you'll be able to install 3-rd party non AppStore applications (through separate applications called Cydia and Installer) and run these applications. If you have old iPhone, in addition to that you'll be able to unlock the device (use with any carrier).
There are two methods: quickpwn and custom firmware method. First one is for quikly pwning and jailbreaking the device without restore. You should use it if you have unlocked device or an AT&T contract.
If you are Windows user:
Go for WinPwn. The current version is 2.5.0.2 (also called 2.5 beta-2). Download here. It supports both iPhone and iPhone 3G, firmwares 2.0, 2.0.1, 2.0.2. You can use either quickpwn or custom firmware method.
There is a separate QuickPwn tool for Windows. The current version is RC3. Download here. Do you need it? Yes, if you want to quick pwn and you do not like WinPwn (or you had problems with it).
If you're using Mac OS:
Go for PwnageTool. The current version is 2.0.3.1. Download here. Works with 2.0, 2.0.1, 2.0.2 firmwares using custom-firmware method.
There is a version of QuickPwn tool for MAC OS. The current version is 1.0.0. Download here. It works only with firmware 2.0.2. Do you need it? Yes, if you want to quick pwn.
QuickPwn is not a replacement for PwnageTool, they are different tools and provide different features, QuickPwn is for quickly pwning a device, whereas PwnageTool is designed to custom build and tailor the ipsw production process, both tools will be actively developed in the future.
Snapture is an enhanced camera application. It costs $8, but trial version is also avaliable. Among the features there are zoom 3х, timer, special effects, multi snapshots and others.
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.
One of the common complaints about Apple’s iPhone–and one that did not get solved with the launch of the iPhone 3G–is the lack of a copy-paste function. An independent developer Zac White has taken matters in his own hands and founded a non-profit, open source, community project called OpenClip which is offering iPhone developers a free Copy and Paste framework that will add this functionality to their applications.
LockDown v3.0 is out with a lot of improvements. If you need to be able to lock certain apps with a password so you can hand your phone off to someone else for a bit, this is the app for you. There is also a lost password protection.
Avaliable in Cydia installer for iPhone with firmware 2.0 and above.
Many visual enhancements and fixes in regards to source and packages display.
Fixed an issue with failing installs with dependencies under some circumstances.
Fixed a bug causing package information to be displayed incorrectly (size 0 bytes) on the first access, or when the custom information HTML page (such as packages from Big Boss' repository) was not displayed.
When updating a package, and one of its dependencies also has an update available, the dependency will be updated as well.
The package icons will only be downloaded when on the Wi-Fi to help you save on bandwidth.
The repositories are being refreshed upon Installer.app launch so you always stay on the bleeding edge with the updates. This is exeperimental behavior and we're not yet sure it will make it to the final release.
Fixed a script command Confirm that was returning invalid button index for the "OK" button.
Lots and lots of both cosmetic and internal application core fixes that improve the overall performance, presentation and stability of the application.
Community Sources package is updated. It now includes a repository for modmyifone.com (lot's of stuff there) and iphone-notes.de (BSD Subsystem and OpenSSH), as well as numerous carrier bundles and other useful stuff.
Apple has just seeded iPhone 2.1 beta 4 to developers—uninteresting, really, except for the fact that the push notification service has been pulled from the release "for further development."
Targeted to hit your iPhone in September, the push service allows apps to receive notifications (internet data) in the background while they're not running, a godsend for AIM and other messaging apps. Hopefully this doesn't mean it'll be delayed.
After WinPwn 2.0.0.4 release users are able to try Insteller 4 beta. The repositary mechanism was changed and applcations should support new firmware (> 2.0), so old ones will not work. Here is the list of new repositaries:
Rip Dev - http://i.ripdev.com
Big Boss - http://apptapp.thebigboss.org/repofiles/installer4/
iSpazio - http://repo.neolinus.org/ispazio/
German - http://sendowski.de/iphone
gPda - http://gpda.ru/r
Andy Dam: http://repo.gafoogle.com/
Ste Packaging: http://repo.smxy.org/installer4
ModMyiFone.com: http://i.modmyifone.com/
Just a reminder, Installer is in beta. So we adwise you to use Cydia.
Winterboard for firmware 2.0 provides some of the functionality that SummerBoard provided. However it looks like it will be much much more in the near future. Currently the settings dialog just allows you to select your theme, but you can expect this to be expanded in the future. (Note: the configuration GUI is not done yet).
At the release of Winterboard, many themes were also released into Cydia. All of our Summerboard themes are now available for use.
Winterboard does more than SummerBoard. It will theme many more elements of your UI. You can theme the battery images and other graphics. There is support for theming inside of .artwork files. It will open the door for themes to become full iPhone themes changing the color of your alerts, graphics in apps, and all sorts of amazing things!
Today, Cydia got a nice face-lift and some nice new features. When you enter the “manage” page you will be given choices between mananging your packages and managing your sources. Manageing sources does not mean that you can add old installer sources. You still must have a valid apt source for Cydia.
It is now possible to edit which packages you do and do not want to see. Cydia comes up and asks you for your preferences at start to ask you which “role” you play:
If you are a user and you do not want to see all the console applications, select “user”. “User” is similar to the level that most installer users are familiar with since installer did not contain a lot of development / hacking packages.
Hacker displays the GUI apps as well as command line apps used in SSH or terminal.
“Developer” will filter out nothing, showing you everything. Many “users” may find some of these packages annoying. This is why you now have a choice!
You can later change this selection by going into “manage” and clicking on “settings”.
In addition, you can filter on “sections” (these are Categories in Installer). You can just tap the “edit” button on top of the “sections” page. If you tap that you will see this screen that lets you enable / disable various sections. Very cool, indeed.
This is one of the most interesting applications for IPhone.
Dynolicious is an all-purpose automotive performance meter, utilizing the built-in accelerometer in the iPhone and iPod touch to record your driving characteristics. BunsenTech, the makers of the software, claim that it can record 0-60 times within .08 of a second, accurately estimate your current speed and monitor and record any directional G force. The system seeks to perform nearly every function of (much) more expensive dedicated monitoring units, which seems like an awfully tall order for a $12.99 piece of cellphone software.
Specifically, the Dynolicious software gives you:
0-60 MPH
Other Speed Tests (0-10 MPH through 0-100 MPH in 10MPH increments)
Quarter Mile Elapsed Time
Quarter Mile Trap Speed
Elapsed Time and Trap Speed for standard intervals (60', 330', 1/8 Mi, 1000')
Lateral G's (current and peak)
Braking G's (current and peak)
Wheel Horsepower
Estimated Engine Horsepower
Realtime Speedometer and Graphs
Realtime graphical skidpad display
View results for latest test run or any saved run
View averages based on vehicle, date, or modification
Compare results between vehicles, dates, or before-and-after modifications
This video walkthrough of MagicPad, a rich text editor app that is still pending acceptance into the App Store, is notable for showing the first working copy and paste framework on the iPhone (at the 1:00 mark). Of course, SDK limitations keep the functionality quarantined within MagicPad itself, but its developers, Proximi, hope to use it as a case study for pushing forward one of the iPhone software's most wanted features.
The big winners in Apple's new online App Store are gamemakers, who dominated sales in the week since the new iPhone 3G hit stores.
Seven of the top 10 paid applications, including the top five, were video games, led by Sega's Super Monkey Ball, a rolling racing game. Even among the free iPhone and iPod Touch applications, which include popular social networking sites like Facebook and the Internet radio service Pandora, the top title is Tap Tap Revenge, a rhythm game similar to Guitar Hero.
These 10 titles sold the best in the iTunes App Store:
After successfull jailbreake of the IPhone/IPhone 3G with firmware 2.0 it is possible to install Cydia installer. And what is more exciting, there are many applications there, including Java.
There is not much defference between Safari 1.1.4 and 2.0. But Under the hood, MobileSafari 2.0's performance is hugely improved over 1.1.4. Everything related to web surfing feels faster, web pages consistently load faster on 2.0, both via Wi-Fi and EDGE. This has nothing to do with the new iPhone 3G hardware — this is about dramatic performance improvements on original iPhones upgraded to the 2.0 OS.
Using MobileSafari simply feels faster, especially with web applications. Feel is by nature subjective, but JavaScript benchmarks back this up.
In August last year, Craig Hockenberry posted a few simple benchmarks to compare the iPhone's processing power and JavaScript interpreter against Safari 3 running on a Mac with a 1.83 GHz Core Duo. At that time, the current version of the iPhone OS was 1.0.1. Here are the results of those same benchmarks on original iPhones running the 1.1.4 and new 2.0 OS versions, with Hockenberry’s 1.0.1 results included for comparison:
Test
1.0.1
1.1.4
2.0
Vs. 1.0.1 / 1.1.4
100,000 iterations
3.209
1.096
0.145
22× / 8×
10,000 divisions
0.413
0.181
0.029
14× / 6×
10,000 sin(x) calls
0.709
0.373
0.140
5× / 3×
10,000 string allocations
0.777
0.434
0.133
6× / 3×
10,000 function calls
0.904
0.595
0.115
8× / 5×
The last column shows how many times faster the 2.0 version of MobileSafari was versus 1.0.1 and 1.1.4. The same results, charted (smaller bars are faster) can be viewed above.
The results are obvious. WebKit JavaScript performance has improved steadily and significantly in just one year, with a huge jump between 1.1.4 and the new 2.0.0. In side-by-side page loading tests between two original iPhones running 1.1.4 and 2.0.0, the new version consistently finished at least a few seconds faster.
For all the hubbub regarding the new App Store, most “iPhone software” runs in the web browser. But improvements in WebKit performance often help native iPhone app performance, too — a slew of my favorite native iPhone apps have built-in WebKit browsers (e.g., NetNewsWire, Twitterrific, Instapaper, and Cocktails). When WebKit performance improves, any app that uses WebKit improves, and WebKit improved a lot between iPhone 1.1.4 and 2.0.0.