Apple had released iPhone version of the popular iMovie video editing software at the WWDC 2010.
The application, which is available in the App Store for $4.99, allows users to record and edit high definition videos on iPhone 4.
However, the iMovie app does not support older iPhone models, even the entry level iPhone 3GS that is being sold by Apple currently.
It was speculated that the app requires iPhone 4's A4 processor to run the real-time transitions, which was the reason it was not be compatible with iPhone 3GS.
But that hasn't stopped someone from hacking their iPhone to get iMovie app to work on an iPhone 3GS. RedmondPie reports that iMovie app was ported by editing the default system version and camera compatibility options on the app's info.plist file.
David Romhan Torres who successfully ported iMovie app to work on his iPhone 3GS writes:
"I just make iMovie for iphone 4 run on an iphone 3GS, it’s very simple just download it from iTunes, modify info.plist file and change the Minimum system version to 3.0.0 and front-facing-camera to false"
Since the workaround involves the editing of the application's plist files, users will require a jailbroken iPhone. However, David points out that users don't necessarily require iOS 4 on their iPhones. He claims that changing the minimum system version to 3.0.0 should make it compatible with the older iOS versions.
RedmondPie reports that they haven't observed any performance problems while testing iMovie app on their iPhone 3GS running iOS 4. However, the app failed to load on the iPad, which runs on iOS 3.2.
You can check out the video of iMovie app running on an iPhone 3GS below:
So as you can see the iMovie app works perfectly fine on the hacked iPhone 3GS so I'm sure users would really like to know why Apple has decided to support only iPhone 4.
We had initially thought that iMovie needed iPhone 4's A4 chip and higher RAM (iPhone 4 has 512MB RAM, double the RAM of iPhone 3GS) but after seeing it work on the iPhone 3GS, we're not convinced that those are the reasons. Let us know what you think in the comments below.
[via Redmond Pie]
