The native iPhone app, Installer app made it very easy to install unofficial native applications on the hacked iPhone, instantly making it one of the most popular native applications with iPhone users prior to iPhone firmware 2.0.
No wonder it was greatly missed when the iPhone Dev Team’s Pwnage Tool v2.0 installed only the Open Source Package Installer and Handler for the iPhone, Cydia and not the popular Installer app after jailbreaking iPhone firmware 2.0.
So, if you have been wondering what happened to the Installer App then check out the progress report on your favorite native iPhone app after the jump.
Installer app was a UIKit based package manager for the iPhone. It works by downloading packages over WiFi (wireless networking) or EDGE. It supports installing, updating and uninstalling applications from multiple sources.
Installer app was developed to simplify application management on the jailbroken iPhone and was released almost a year back. It quickly became one of the popular iPhone apps as it made it very easy to install unofficial iPhone applications which until that point was a complicated process and was only for the technically inclined users.
If you were wondering what happened to the Installer app after not seeing it part of iPhone Dev Team’s Pwnage Tool, then the good news is that the iPhone hacking community have been working to make it a lot better.
Some of the changes/enhancements in Installer App 4.0 are mentioned below:
Change in Repository Format:
They have changed the format of the repository (more applicable to native iPhone developers) to resolve the bandwidth and compatibility issues that plagued the older version.
The change in repository format will help in downloading more compact packages from the server when refreshing a source which in the in previous version resulted in fetching the whole repository listing which used to consume large amounts of bandwidth.
The new version of Installer app will now show you native iPhone applications that are compatible with the iPhone firmware installed on your iPhone rather than showing you all the applications which resulted in compatibility issues.
Improved performance:
The iPhone hacking community is going to use SQLlite database for storing the available and installed applications. This will make searching and indexing very fast, avoid loading the repository listing in the RAM and only access it on demand and ultimately help in making the Installer app startup sequence significantly faster as in comparison to the older version of the Installer app.
Dependent Packages Installed Automatically:
One of the problems with the older version of the Installer app was that to get a native iPhone application to run successfully, you had to ensure you had installed all the dependent packages. With the new version that will no longer be required, if a particular package requires, say, Jiggy Runtime, when you try to install it, the Jiggy Runtime will be installed too (if available).
MultiThreaded:
You are no longer restricted to just action with Installer app 4.0. You will be able to refresh sources, install applications in parallel or in the background and also be able to cancel any of the tasks if required.
Improved User Interface:
Based on the screen shot below, it also appears that the iPhone Hacking community have improved the user interface of Installer App.
They seem to be working with native iPhone application developers currently to migrate their apps to the new repository structure and expect Installer v4.0 to be released sometime soon. It could be part of the Pwnage Tool like before and possibly also available on Cydia.
This is indeed great news for all those waiting for the Installer App, not only will it be available on iPhone firmware 2.0 soon, it will be a lot better than the version which folks already loved. Stay tuned here at iPhone Hacks to get latest on the Installer app.
It will be great to hear your thoughts on Installer app’s progress report.
Update:
Installer App 4.0 Early Beta which Simplifies Unofficial iPhone Apps Management Leaked
[via Rip Dev Blog]
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