iPod Touch Update 1.1.3

So the iPod Touch firmware update (version 1.1.3) was announced at the Stevenote this evening (proper time). For some reason it took a little over two hours to download, and then it didn't appear to offer any new features apart from a new search button in Safari, which booted the bookmark button down onto the bottom bar. Not even any wiggling icons.

Now, I made a bit of a tit of myself over at the Macalope's place (mostly because it's late and the bit about the AppleTV didn't register), but the question still remains, why are AppleTV owners getting a fancy new system update for free? while iPod Touch users have to pay? And it's not like we're just paying for the five applications. If we were then it would surely have been easier for Apple to wait and make them available through the iPhone app store once it's up and running. But it's not the apps that we're buying, it an unlock for the features of 1.1.3. The download you purchase takes a second to download, and once it's run you've got new features outside the five apps, like being able to rearrange the home page.

The argument, of course, is that earnings from the AppleTV, like those for the iPhone, are booked over a number of years. Sorry, but this just doesn't wash. The AppleTV has been on sale for almost a year now, but until today (or until the date in the future when the software upgrade is made) you have not been able to purchase items from the iTunes Store through it, meaning that there was absolutely no basis for Apple's accountants to book those earnings as subscription-based. The iPod Touch, however, has been able to download from the iTunes store since day one, so if either of these devices should be eligible for free updates, it should be the iPod.

Putting the "ass" into Akass

Personal Computer World is the only print magazine I buy nowadays, mainly because I've never got round to cancelling my subscription. Still, it provides an interesting off-line read every month. The one thing I can't stand, however, is the attitude which their News Editor, Clive Akass, takes toward Apple. I don't know if he was bullied by the Cupertino company as a child or something: it certainly reads that way at times.

The magazine's Test Bed Blog has been quiet of late, but has sprung back to life with two posts in the last two days, both of which have included pointless swipes at Apple. "Apple maxes out during CES" seems to be complaining about Apple announcing products while CES is on, while "Why I bought a [sic] Eee PC" takes a dig at "Apple's iToys" for not having proper keyboards.

Oh well, I suppose it's better he gets it out of his system here, rather than clogging-up the paper PCW's scant news pages with this drivel.

Developing for the iPod Touch

Since the reason I got an iPod Touch was to develop applications for it, I though that it was about time I actually got round to giving it a go. This is a brief round-up of the tutorials I used, presented in the order I should have done them.

First step was to jailbreak the iPod to allow access to its file system. As I had OS v.1.1.2 this meant downgrading to 1.1.1. The instructions on this page worked perfectly for me. The longest part was downloading the two versions of the firmware from Apple.

When you run the Java .jar file in the last stage I recommend ticking the box to install SSH. Then, to connect to your iPod, first get its IP address from Settings -> Wifi and click on the arrow in the blue circle next to your active connection. Now from the Terminal, type:

ssh root@IPADDRESS

The default root password should be alpine, although you can easily change this using the SSH icon on the iPod. To begin with SSH is rather sparse since there are no command line tools installed. These can be found in the "BSD sub-system" package in the installer. Note, however, that I'm not sure whether installing them caused me the problems in the stage (and they can't be easily removed), but all things considered you're better off with them.

Next, in order to compile the toolchain used to build iPod apps, we need a copy of the iPod's file system. In theory we should be able to get this by using the scp command, thus:

sudo scp -r root@IPADDRESS:/ /usr/local/share/iphone-filesystem

Which should copy every file into the directory on your Mac where the toolchain Makefile expects it. However, for me this ran fine for 15 minutes and then stalled on "Resource Busy" / "not a regular file" errors for file in the /dev directory. Copying individual directories from route (/usr is the really important one) side-stepped this. Oh, and you may want to remove all your songs and movies from the iPod before you do this and save yourself a few hours.

Instructions for getting and compiling the toolchain can be found here, and with the preparation above should work without problems. To test that everything is working I used this Hello World source code, found via here. Download it (it should unzip automatically), then in the terminal navigate to the directory and run make. If everything is set up correctly you'll now have a file called "Hello" (identified as a UNIX executable by the Finder). Copy this to your iPod with:

scp ./Hello root@IPADDRESS:/Applications/

To run it, SSH into the iPod, navigate to the Applications folder, and run "Hello":

cd /Applications
./Hello

"Hello World" should be displayed on the iPod (wake it up and unlock it). You'll notice that the home button doesn't do anything. To kill the program, go back to SSH in the terminal and hit ctrl+C. The # prompt will reappear in the console and the iPod will drop back to the launch screen.

Well, that's it for compiling and running a first iPod app, now it's off to find some documentation for the iPod version of Cocoa.