Jailbreaking my iPod Touch, part three

Not really a third part, but having documented my iPod Touch hacking (part one here and part two here), I got to thinking about why I would upgrade to a newer version of the Touch firmware.

Apple is in a situation akin to Sony with it’s PSP. What drives people to update if they have hacked their devices? Arguably there are more people with hacked iPhones/Touches than there are with PSPs, so it may be a bigger problem for Apple, keeping everyone on the same firmware.

In Sony’s case it couldn’t provide any really compelling features, bar the RSS feeds and the ability to play PSOne games, and the first one doesn’t work for me (never has) and the second one will never work for me as I intend never to buy a PS3 – I mean just how badly does one need to play the next iteration of tired franchises that just feature better graphics?

So Sony ‘solved’ it’s problem by forcing updates via purchased games. These games would only work with a certain version of the firmware, so if you want to play ‘Crap port of a PS2 game 3’ you’d need to update.

The iPhone and Touch don’t have official games (yet), so that’s not a significant driver right now for people to update. So what problems are there still on a hacked iPhone or Touch?

What’s left to fix?

Well, despite having a device that is now truly akin to the iPhone without the phone, there are still some annoying things left. The lack of a consistent keyboard for a start – double tapping of space sometimes yields a full stop, in other circumstances it doesn’t. Sometimes ‘.com’ appears, sometimes it doesn’t, even when you would think it was pertinant. Also, what about ‘.co.uk’ for us English users (and note that’s not ‘internatinal’ English, that’s proper fucking english, not that American shite). Oh and an editable dictionary maybe – I swear I will burst a blood vessel the next time ‘Los’ comes up instead of ‘Loz’.

Then there’s the lack of Flash support, which I am hoping, fingers crossed, that Adobe is sorting out, though would Apple have gone to so much YouTube trouble were it in the works sometime soon?

Would any of that make me upgrade until another Jailbreak appeared? Highly unlikely at this point in time as most of them, bar the Flash support, are really really minor, and things that I can live with.

What would make me upgrade?

If the world was equal and Apple released a firmware update that opened the mobile Mac OS X up to third party development, I and everyone else would obviously update. As that’s about as likely to happen as Satan going home in a snow plough, there has to be something else.

So, I reckon I would upgrade if:

• Mail, Google Maps, Notes and Weather made it to the iPod Touch. Doesn’t have to be all at once, but it would help if they were officially installed and supported. Throw in the iCal fix whilst you’re at it too (again not arsed myself, but a lot of people are).
• A remote control for iTunes running on a local Mac. I don’t even really want a full VNC – I just want a remote control for iTunes on my Mac Mini, without having to turn on my TV.
• That Flash Player actually surfaced, but only if the above two things happened first.
• An acceptance that I might have my media on a different computer to my contacts and calendars and software to implement that, again officially installed and supported.

If the above things were fixed, and then the minor things I listed towards the start of this were also fixed, it might actually be compelling. I really can’t think of anything else that would cut it for me.

Apple’s version of upgrade or the games wont work

Simple. Upgrade iTunes so it wont work with pre v1.1.2 or whatever firmware, or make Leopard incompatible with pre v1.1.2 firmware. This could well happen, especially given Apple’s recent shift to ‘we know better than you’, as commented on in an article by Christopher Breen on Macworld.com (which also references the ‘three day rule’, or the three day reunion rule as he calls it.). And why should it not? They are in control of the software, and for most people it’s not even going to be an issue.

Wont stop me, and countless others moaning about it though.

[Runs off, turns round and flicks the v’s, whilst shouting ‘You wankers’ in a high pitched voice from a safe distance, at Apple]