Hack your iPhone: install a toolchain

This “hairball” post is ancient and unfinished. Would anyone care about this now? Probably not. Maybe some future data archaeologist will care.

In my previous post I covered what a toolchain is and why you need one to cross-compile applications for the iPhone.

I’ve seen rumors that there will be a Windows toolchain soon, and in theory you can create an iPhone toolchain on older Apple computer with PowerPC chips, but most of the iPhone development these days seems to favor the newer Intel-based Apple computers.

One of the best resources for all iPhone related info is the iPhone dev wiki at http://iphone.fiveforty.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page (unlinked because the wiki maintainers aren’t sure that they can handle lots of visitors and request that people not link directly). The toolchain page at http://iphone.fiveforty.net/wiki/index.php?title=Toolchain_Project has a lot of details, and the talk page (look for the link labeled “discussion”) gives even more background. But those pages are really terse.

Here’s a little more background info, and I’ll include some additional links at the end.

Getting gcc

Did you know that recent Apple computers (and even the iPhone) ships with a solid UNIX-based kernel? You might have heard that. Something I didn’t know is that Apple computers don’t ship with a compiler such as gcc pre-installed. It should be on the DVD that came with your computer; Apple calls its developer tools Xcode, and Xcode includes gcc.

You can also download Xcode/gcc from the web. Visit http://connect.apple.com/ and sign up for a (free) developer account. After you sign up, the “Downloads” link will become clickable. Click that, then click the “Developer Tools” link. I downloaded Xcode 2.4.1, although there is a beta of Xcode 2.5 available as of today. The download is a DMG file, which stands for “Disk Image.” Double-clicking on the .dmg file will mount the disk image and open a file folder that includes the file “XcodeTools.mpkg” and if you double-click on that package, you’ll get a window that guides you through the installation of Xcode Tools. When you’re done, you can type “which gcc” in a Terminal window and you’ll see that gcc is installed.

Downloading toolchain code

Are you tired yet? Then you might want to take a break, because things are just getting started. For example, the first thing you’ll read on the wiki toolchain page is:

To use the new toolchain, check out the latest branch (as of this writing, 0.20):

svn checkout svn://svn.berlios.de/iphone-binutils/branches/alpha/0.20/

And you might be thinking “What the heck is svn?” It’s a program called Subversion, and it lets you check out source code across the web. Here’s a page about how to install Subversion on a Mac. The short answer is that there’s a couple ways. First, you can install a program called Fink that in turn helps you install more UNIX-related programs such as Subversion. Or you can download a Disk Image file, click the .dmg file, and install svn directly.

Getting Libstreams

The next thing to do on the iPhone dev wiki page says

Download libstreams from Apple’s web site, compile it, and install it.

And I’m thinking “Could they get any more terse?” Plus the dev wiki is locked down to prevent wiki vandalism, so only a few people can edit that wiki. Thanks a lot, wiki spammers, you jerks. Now everybody has to interpret terse instructions on their own and can’t update the wiki with more detailed instructions.

To get/install Libstreams, it looks like you can fetch the correct source (PowerPC/PPC or Intel/x86) from
http://publicsource.apple.com/darwinsource/10.4.9.x86/Libstreams-24.1/ or
http://publicsource.apple.com/darwinsource/10.4.9.ppc/Libstreams-24.1/

You’ll have to log in with an Apple ID. Once you log in, you see about 20 files. Download each one in turn into a single directory, and make sure that you save the files as raw files, not html. Do that by mousing over a file, doing a control-click on the filename, select “Save Link As…” and make sure to change the “Format:” drop-down selector from “HyperText” to “All Files.”

Once you have all the libstreams files in one directory, open a Terminal window, cd into that directory, and type “make” to make the libstreams.a library. Then type “sudo make install” to install the library into the right location on your Apple computer.

Are you still with me? Because we’re really just getting started. Next the wiki says

Get a copy of the iPhone system software, and set the environment variable HEAVENLY to its location (export HEAVENLY=/path/to/iphone/software).

Unless you’re a real geek, you’re probably thinking “What the @#$% does that even mean?” Well, review my toolchain and cross-compiling post. In order to build a proper toolchain, we need some of the software that is only found on the iPhone (header files? libraries? I’m not 100% sure). Since we’re cross-compiling on (say) an Apple computer, that means that we need iPhone software on our Apple desktop machine. That’s a little bit of a problem. In theory, you could copy your iPhone’s filesystem to your computer. There’s even a program called Toolchain Helper mentioned at http://iphone.fiveforty.net/wiki/index.php/Toolchain_Helper that does that. But Toolchain Helper doesn’t run on a pristine iPhone; you need to “jailbreak” your iPhone first. You can also run AppTapp/Installer.app to let you install the Toolchain Helper.

There is another way to get the iPhone software onto your computer. Apple provides the disk image (DMG) file for iPhone software. Woohoo! Except that it’s encrypted. Bleah. But someone figured out how to decrypt the software! Woohoo! Except that some people worry that decrypting the software might be a violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Bleah. But lots of people believe that reverse-engineering software for the purposes of interoperability is legal! Woohoo! And the DMCA contains an explicit exemption for unlocking cell phones in some circumstances. Woohoo! If you’re at all nervous about decrypting a DMG file, then don’t. Consult with your local lawyer to see what your comfort level is.

The best instructions I’ve seen to extract the iPhone DMG contents are Landon Fuller’s post. He has a link to some modified source code to a program called vfdecrypt, but for some reason when I compiled vfdecrypt it wouldn’t work for me on the DMG file. There’s a precompiled vfdecrypt file to be found at http://ellkro.jot.com/HowToBuildObjCApps inside of the phonedmg12.tar.gz file on that page.

And that, sadly, is as far as I’ve gotten so far. I haven’t managed to compile a working toolchain myself yet. I’m using an older PowerPC Mac, and trying to compile things caused errors for me. I enjoyed playing around with toolchains for a day, but I don’t have much more time to invest in this. It’s clear that building a toolchain is still not for the weak of heart. On the bright side, once you have a working toolchain, it looks like there are a ton of cool applications you could write.

Mini-review of the iPad

I played with an iPad yesterday. Here’s my mini-review. The screen is bright and the touch sensitivity is fantastic. Given that it reminds me the most of an iPhone, it’s surprisingly heavy. It feels dense with potential.

On the childlike-sense-of-wonder-scale (as fake Steve Jobs would say), the iPad is better than the Macbook Air but not as stunning as the iPhone when the iPhone first came out. I played with my wife’s iPhone for just a few minutes before I knew I had to have an iPhone. But I never really cared about the Macbook Air, mainly because the screen resolution was worse than my current laptop. The iPad fits between those two products in the spectrum of desirability for me.

The form factor is… weird. You’re going to feel strange carrying one of these into the grocery store, in the same way you felt weird using your cell phone in the grocery store at first. Leave it to Apple to blaze a trail of coolness though; the iPad will make this form factor acceptable, so you won’t feel quite as strange carrying a tablet into a meeting in a few months. The form factor fundamentally is awkward though: the iPad is book-sized, but much more delicate than a book. A screen this big with no protection will get scratched or scuffed. I’d expect to see plenty of articles about dropped iPads like you did about Wiimotes getting thrown into TVs and windows.

The gadget lover in me wants one, but the part of me that cares about open source and tinkering is stronger. I’m with Cory Doctorow on this one. The iPad is gorgeous, but it’s still not worth it for me. Yesterday, I also bought two books at the bookstore to read on a trip. Walking back to my car with “paper media” felt a bit dorky–why am I buying books on paper in 2010? If I could buy a book digitally and really own it (not just obtain a license to read a book, where the license could be revoked), I’d quickly switch to buying my books digitally. But the success of the Kindle shows that a lot of people care more about the convenience than completely owning what they’re buying digitally.

I think the iPad will be a huge hit. Non-tech-savvy consumers will love it because of the user experience, the simplicity, and the lack of viruses/malware/trojans. It’s like a computer without all the hassles of a typical computer (pre-installed crapware, anti-virus software, inconvenient software upgrades). Lots of tech-savvy consumers will love the iPad for the same reasons, and especially for the polish and user experience. The current iPad lacks a few things (such as a camera), which ensures that future generations of the iPad will also be a huge hit.

But the iPad isn’t for me. I want the ability to run arbitrary programs without paying extra money or getting permission from the computer manufacturer. Almost the only thing you give up when buying an iPad is a degree of openness, and tons of people could care less about that if they get a better user experience in return. I think that the iPad is a magical device built for consumers, but less for makers or tinkerers. I think the world needs more makers, which is why I don’t intend to buy an iPad. That said, I think the typical consumer will love the iPad.

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