New Vs. Old IPhone Apps


You’ve probably never heard of this obscure new device called the iPhone 3G from no-name manufacturer Apple, but we decided to give a rundown of some of its newest apps anyway. We’ll be comparing them to non-SDK third-party apps that only work on jailbroken iPhones.

The iPhone 3G announcement at WWDC 2008 brought good news for sports fans as an official MLB.tv app will be bundled with the iPhone 3G. It provides live scoreboards, pitch-by-pitch updates, and current video highlights minutes after they happen. There is no comparable unlicensed third-party app, but Sportstap.mobi, formerly MLB iPhone, is a site that contains similar information and has been optimized for iPhone browsing. Sportstap does not offer all the rich content that MLB.tv app does, so this is a clear win for SDK apps.

For gamers, a few SDK games have come down the pike over the last few months, and today another game, Super Monkey Ball, was announced. It uses standard touchscreen controls in addition to new tilt controls, giving the gameplay a more complex and rich feel. Fun to be sure, but adventurous jailbreakers can feast on a much larger selection of games, including iPong, iChess, and the wonderful NES Emulator Application that can play hundreds of NES roms. While games as complex as Super Monkey Ball and Spore may never be written without the iPhone SDK, the busy and resourceful emulation community will always win out on game selection. In addition, only non-SDK developers have toyed with the idea of multiplayer games like Battleship Peer2peer, which allows users to play Battleship against human opponents.

On-the-go bloggers were also taken into account in the latest crop of native iPhone apps with the new Typepad app. It allows users to manage and edit posts on a Typepad blog, but it really shines where it comes to photo manipulation. The app allows users to add, move, and scale images on their blog, and it is capable of manipulating photos from the web or those taken with the iPhone’s built-in camera. There are a number of simple photo editing apps and a few notepad-style apps available to jailbroken iPhones, but nothing that even approaches the level of interactivity with a specific blogging service found in the Typepad app.

Productivity, audio, and miscellaneous apps made without the SDK abound, but it remains to be seen what innovations SDK developers will bring forth. With the list of iPhone applications still growing, it would be somewhat short-sighted of us to declare that one way is better than the other, but we’re curious where you stand on the issue. Do you prefer to be in the fold with Apple or the DIY spirit of making apps from scratch and eschewing the Cupertino ivory tower? Let us know.

16 thoughts on “New Vs. Old IPhone Apps

  1. I agree with the first post.

    I have been lurking this site for a number of years, and this is the first time that I have been disappointed in the content presented to me on this site.

    I know that some naysayers will tell me that, “you don’t have to read articles of this type if you don’t want to, and nobody is forcing you to read them.”

    I will respond preemptively by stating that when any media group or blog, etc changes to a more popular article type or tv show type, etc, viewers may go up, but the original, founding group feels betrayed and abandoned.

    A recent example of this would be when the Discovery channel began to broadcast shows such as “Cash Cab” and “The Deadliest Catch”. The shows, though interesting to some, were more reminiscent of mainstream reality tv shows of little educational merit. This directly contradicted the name of “Discovery” which may lead a viewer to believe that they broadcast an educational palette of shows.

    I am also reminded of TLC, who in recent years has gone from “The Learning Channel” to the “Testosterone Lowering Channel.” TLC’s downfall all
    began with a show that I rather liked: Junkyard Wars. It was a good show, a show that I feel many here would have enjoyed, but it deviated from the standard TLC fare. Thus, it opened the way for the crap which now perpetually graces the screen of TLC.

    I hope that hackaday will stay away from future articles of this sort, and instead stay true to its roots. I love this site, and I dread the day when it goes the way of TLC. Please editors, beware of this type of article in the future.

  2. I also agree, the maintainers of this site are totally abusing the powers.

    This is Hackaday, we came here for what you originally gave us.. not this dumb-downed news crap.

    If we wanted this, we would have went to a news portal.

    As been told in several other posts, clean up your act guys.. stop ignoring your loyal viewers, it’s not wise.

  3. Apart from being irrelevant, the information in this post is plain wrong. First of all, there are way more games for jailbroken iPhones/iPots than that old NES emu. That was news one year ago, guys. Since then we’ve seen Gameboy Advance, Playstation, and SNES emulators. Not to mention complex, 3d, native games like Raging Thunder (a 3d racing game).

    And what’s with this six-hacks-a-day thing? What happened to ONE a day? I’m starting to long for the days when Will was the only posting editor. Look for a little more quality over quantity in your posts, guys.

  4. Agreed with #1
    the name of the website is “HACK a day” not “Iphone advertisement a day”

    Keep to a single… well thought out hack.. per day.

    just my .02
    -MadMan

  5. wow, ty sean for the daily link. just made that the default for my hackaday link in my toolbar. wish there was a way i could have the rest of the hacks (misc/gps/peripherals/etc) and none of the news.

    screw these “news” type of posts, will was doing fine with doing a hack a day (hmmm what a concept). fire the new staff, you dont need them…

  6. This garbage has nothing to do with hacks at all!

    Maybe if it told us HOW to hack the phone… BUT it does not!

    Wtf man… ruining a good site with this horse junk.
    *confused*

  7. I totally agree.
    No more crap. Just one hack per day. Got two good ones? Keep one for the day after.
    Only exceptions should be articles about hack related events, which could be posted on the same day as a hack.

Leave a Reply

Please be kind and respectful to help make the comments section excellent. (Comment Policy)

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.