iPhone + Google Voice = Love July 23, 2009

This past week, after waiting years, I was graced with a Google Voice invite. I immediately set it up to use my new number as a forward to my iPhone. Things were looking good and I was adjusting the settings within GV so I could avoid little annoyances such as SMS messages being forwarded etc, when I started to wonder what developers had already done with the technology (after all it had been in existence awhile as GrandCentral). So I found two apps on the iPhone App Store that would dial out, playback voicemails, send and view SMS messages, and a few more common things. One of the big features I found missing was the ability to receive calls through the apps. One may think this is no big deal, but considering that I live on a campus without a strong GSM cellular signal I need all the help I can get! Fortunately I found a solution…

iPhone apps are loose! July 28, 2008

So as you may know I am one of those guys whose pretty fluent with the technology.

I was looking around the web yesterday and found out people are cracking iPhone/iPod Touch apps. One of the key communities I found for the “cracking” scene is a forum at haklabs.com. Basically there are two current methods of cracking and installing. One method involves modifying a file on the iPhone so you can install via iTunes and the other is through SSH. One is packed as a .ipa file and the other a .app directory. Both methods require a jailbreaked 2.0 device. I’m not going to go into how to crack or install the apps, but right now it’s not real user friendly on either end. To crack the apps it is necessary to own the file and have your iPhone/touch jailbreaked. You’ll also have to use terminal and SSH.

I spoke to one of the crackers and he let me know that while its difficult at the moment, a GUI version will hopefully be out soon.