Why Installer.app may not be dead. Yet.

by WyldKard on July 18, 2008

The 3G has been out for one week now, and with it came the App Store, which allows users sporting the new 2.0 firmware to download a variety of applications that has deemed worthy. Some of these applications cost money, others are totally free. Many of these applications happen to be duplicates or revisions of previously available through Installer.app, the lovely application that users could access with jailbroken (i.e. hacked) iPhones.

Initially, we were concerned that would treat the App Store like similar offerings on other cell . For example, Danger’s Sidekick, on T-Mobile, had a very tight restriction on available for it, because T-Mobile simply didn’t distribute much of the developed for the Sidekick. T-Mobile also made this pay-per-download, and the prices were generally higher than the average application now available through the App Store. What hurt the Sidekick more, however, was that the smaller user-base was reflected in the Sidekick hacking community. In other words, with less people using the Sidekick than the , no one spent the effort to jailbreak the Sidekick such that unsigned third-party could be run on it. This was a huge burden to the platform, and seriously restricted the Sidekick from becoming more popular, especially considering the number of useable applications designed for it that T-Mobile simply refused to “approve”. That’s pretty sad considering the Sidekick’s out-of-box offerings that include an instant messenger client, and applications that can run in the background. A command-line terminal application was also available from the near get-go when the Sidekick 3 was released.

has done a decent job with the App Store, and even though some developers are complaining that has been slow to sign off on certain applications, overall the App Store has been a success, with a handful of new applications showing up each day. There’s still no background tasks, which is seriously limiting, and no terminal application, but there are a variety of utilities out there that, if nothing else, serve to entertain the masses.

So what of Installer.app? While repositories for Installer.app are still being updated, there’s absolutely been a shift in developer’s effort. That’s because, unexpectedly, developers can get many more users for their products by releasing them on the App Store, since the applications there are available to all users, not just those with jailbroken units. That’s why the App Store is finally offering applications like Twinkle, which we jailbroken users have had for months, only the App Store version is a bit more polished.

Of course, Installer.app won’t just go away. There are still a number of applications that likely won’t allow, be that unlocking , navigation , customization applications, et al. In many ways, this is a good thing, because it will finally keep the crap off Installer.app, and potentially transform it into the hardcore user’s version of the App Store. The downside, of course, is that Installer.app will be unlikely to serve up modern games and basic utilities, but so long as we can use both it and the App Store, there’s little reason to complain. Even for gamers who will likely scour the App Store more often than Installer. app in the future, the latter will still be the only way to get one’s emulation fix, so all hope is not lost.

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