RiP Dev Releases InstallerApp

RiP Dev has released InstallerApp for Mac OS X, a tool that basically acts as a desktop client for Installer and Cydia

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InstallerApp is a Mac OS X tool that basically acts as a desktop client for Installer and Cydia repositories you use daily on your iPhone. It will refresh the sources, track package updates, and install packages to your iPhone over an USB cable -- so you don't even need Wi-Fi. InstallerApp will also install everything you need on the phone -- do jailbroken iPhone is no longer a requirement -- it will use the Pusher technology to install required software to your device.

InstallerApp can install software in two flavors -- when you initially connect an iPhone, it will ask you to install some required components (that is mostly the Installer itself and its daemon, an application that will respond to InstallerApp requests on the USB). This can be installed on any iPhone, and if it was not jailbroken before, then it will not even open the system disk for writing -- this to guarantee the security and integrity of your system.


If you wish to install software that uses APT/DPKG (probably most known on the iPhone world after the graphical front-end Cydia), then the system partition will have to be open for writing (most dpkg packages won't work otherwise) -- and yes, InstallerApp can do that too by downloading a special "ramdisk" that contains the open source components (such as dpkg, and some essential tools) and "pushing it" to the iPhone. We have rebuilt the components on our own as the ones packaged with other solutions were not built with all diligence and patience as they should have been.

Yes, once DPKG support is installed, InstallerApp can install Cydia packages -- moreover, if you install something in Cydia on the iPhone (or Installer, of course), InstallerApp will know about it, and vice versa -- so you can use the packager you feel more convienient at the particular time. Nifty, huh?

For the ones who already have jailbroken phones, you can install a packaged named InstallerApp Support from Installer's System category. It will essentially put both InstallerApp daemon and the DPKG utilities right onto your phone, so you don't have to Push twice.

An extra cool factor -- the application icon was made by Max Rudberg of MaxThemes fame. The idea was to extend the original Installer icon to the desktop - which naturally come as a realization that maybe all iPhone icons are actually cubes -- but we only see one edge of it when we use the iPhone. InstallerApp icon is an exact clone of the iPhone icon, except you can see it in whole now. ;)


Everything comes at a price... in this particular case, InstallerApp will freely allow you to browse the repositories and Push the device -- but not install packages on it. To work with your iPhone, InstallerApp requires a license code. Each license code costs $7 and works for up to 3 devices -- so you can use it to synchronize your phone family's phones (or if you're a geek like me, both of your iPhones, heh). If you have more than 3 iPhones, well, you can buy more than one license code.

To answer some questions that likely will arise... we already have a lot of stuff planned for the coming updates of InstallerApp, so there is more waiting for you. Windows version is in the development and will ship later (unfortunately, we don't yet have a definite release date). iPod touch support is being investigated.
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