Installer 4.0 is now available in Cydia and is compatible with iOS 4.3.x firmware and below. Installer was the first jailbreak app store, back before Apple even announced the official App Store, but disappeared when RipDev stopped developing it. Cydia quickly came along to fill the gap, but now the Infini-Dev team has brought it back.

Yesterday we had success “porting” Installer to 4.3.3 and below. Installer works with a different system than Cydia, thats why you won't be able to add a Cydia repo into installer. As we speak we are working on a new community source for installer only, which means you will be able to install things via installer.

We could use help, you may help us by submitting apps that where hosted by installer, or apps that have the installer structure. Or by making apps with a installer structure.

To get Installer on your iPhone just add http://fr0stdev.co.cc/repo to your repo list in Cydia. The apps available are few and far between right now, so using Installer isn’t going to be a great experience until more contributions are made and a new community source is up and running.

When we tested Installer we ran into a MobileSubstrate issue so we had to run it in Safe Mode, and the landing page also presented us with a 403 error. So it looks like they’ve got a few bugs to hammer out. Still, it’s nice to have options. Let us know if it’s working any better for you in the comments!

[Infini-Dev via Redmond Pie]

Installer 4.0 jailbreak app store returns to the scene, compatible with iOS 4.3.x [Jailbreak] is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb - The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog

TiPb’s developer spotlights are like DVD/iTunes Extras for the App Store — a weekly look behind the scenes at the programers and designers that bring you the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad apps and games you love. This week Rene talks with the team at NAVIGON.

What are your names Bernd, Andreas, Eva, Bernd, Christian, Andreas, Andrej

What company are you all with? NAVIGON

Where are you located? Wuerzburg, Germany

And on the web? www.navigon.com

What’s your Twitter name? @NAVIGON_US

What apps do you make? NAVIGON MobileNavigator, help2park

What apps, other than your own, are currently among your favorites? Shazam, WeatherPro, IMDB, Tiny Wings

How long have you been a developer? NAVIGON was founded in 1991 and this year we celebrate our 20th anniversary. We’ve developed many industry firsts, including the first navigation system for Pocket PC, the first dynamic traffic information service, and the first realistic display of highway interchanges and exits (Reality View), among many other features.

How long have you been an iOS developer? We started developing for iOS in 2009.

Do you develop for any other platform in addition to iOS? If so, which one(s)? NAVIGON develops navigation solutions for most major smartphone platforms, including Android, Windows Phone 7, Bada, Windows Mobile, and Symbian.

What primary computer setup do you use for your iOS development? Our iOS team mainly uses various iMacs and MacBook Pros. A Mac Pro serves as our buildserver.

What iOS device(s) do you personally use most often? We mostly use the iPhone 4 and iPad 2.

What mobile devices, other than iOS, do you currently use? We use 99.9% iOS devices.

What’s your favorite thing about developing for iOS? The SDK is very thought through and intuitive. Also, the overall structure of iOS and the App Store environment is very stable and reliable.

What’s your least favorite thing about developing for iOS? We partially miss API access to system functions.

What feature would you most like Apple to add to the iOS 5 SDK? We would like to see the integration of app content into the spotlight search. Since most content is saved within apps, this would make it much easier to find stuff. We would also really like to be able to only partially update our app with smaller changes like bug fixes, for example. Right now, users always need to download the full application no matter how big the update is. It would be great if iOS 5 would allow us to push out smaller updates, so our users only have to download the data that has been changed and not the full application.

What feature would you most like Apple to add to the App Store? We would love to be able to respond to user reviews or to have the option to get in touch with our app users. This would allow us to provide assistance and clarify misunderstandings.

If we were to eavesdrop on you while you were coding, what curse word would we hear you use the most? We sometimes hear a German word starting with “sch.”

What do you do when you’re not coding iOS apps? There’s not much time left… Other than working on NAVIGON’s iOS apps, we enjoy spending time with friends and travelling.

What should we look for from you next? We are working on some major additions for our MobileNavigator app for this summer. This will include some amazing surprises, stay tuned!

We would also like to point out that only those who have our latest version (1.8 or 1.8.1) are eligible to take advantage of the benefits in the next version, so we encourage everyone to update their MobileNavigator app. We will also roll-out a couple of new free single-feature apps, similar to help2park but with different functionalities.

Thanks Bernd, Andreas, Eva, Bernd, Christian, Andreas, Andrej and team NAVIGON!

Developer Spotlight: NAVIGON’s Bernd, Andreas, Eva, Bernd, Christian, Andreas, and Andrej is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb - The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog

According to The Loop, Apple has sent a letter to patent holder Lodsys, asking them to stop threatening iOS developers with patent infringement letters.

"Apple is undisputedly licensed to these patents and the App Makers are protected by that license," wrote Bruce Sewell, Apple Senior Vice President and General Counsel.

Best smiting since Gandalf cast the Balrog’s ruin upon the mountainside?

[The Loop]

UPDATE: Macworld has the full text of Apple’s response letter. Here are some good bits. [Macworld]

Because I believe that your letters are based on a fundamental misapprehension regarding Apple's license and the way Apple's products work, I expect that the additional information set out below will be sufficient for you to withdraw your outstanding threats to the App Makers and cease and desist from any further threats to Apple's customers and partners.

Through its threatened infringement claims against users of Apple's licensed technology, Lodsys is invoking patent law to control the post-sale use of these licensed products and methods. Because Lodsys's threats are based on the purchase or use of Apple products and services licensed under the Agreement, and because those Apple products and services, under the reading articulated in your letters, entirely or substantially embody each of Lodsys's patents, Lodsys's threatened claims are barred by the doctrines of patent exhaustion and first sale. As the Supreme Court has made clear, "[t]he authorized sale of an article that substantially embodies a patent exhausts the patent holder's rights and prevents the patent holder from invoking patent law to control postsale use of the article." Quanta Computer, Inc. v. LG Elecs., Inc., 553 U.S. 617 (2008).

Therefore, Apple requests that Lodsys immediately withdraw all notice letters sent to Apple App Makers and cease its false assertions that the App Makers' use of licensed Apple products and services in any way constitute infringement of any Lodsys patent.

UPDATE 2: FOSS Patents weighs in with Florian Mueller’s analysis [FOSS Patents]

I don’t mean to be negative here. I just want to make all app developers fully aware of the issues they may still face. Since Lodsys is already suing a group of large players, which is collectively even more powerful than Apple, it would be irresponsibly optimistic to assume that Apple’s letter all by itself is going to make Lodsys give up. Unless Apple settles the deal with Lodsys (neither the terms of such a deal nor the mere fact might ever be announced — Lodsys might simply never follow up on its original infringement assertions), there will be some next step in this process, and things could still get nasty. So let’s be optimistic today, but let’s also be cautious.

UPDATE 3: Nilay Patel offers his thoughts as well [This is my Next]

The big question now is whether Lodsys is willing to take Apple to court in order to challenge that license interpretation; Lodsys would be fairly foolish to have not considered exactly this situation when they formulated their business plan. We'll see what happens, but for the moment things have taken a promising turn.

Apple tells Lodsys that developers are licensed, asks them to withdraw threats [updated] is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb - The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog

Square, the mobile payment system that was started by one of the co-founders of Twitter, Jack Dorsey, just received a rather significant update that allows business owners to showcase their products through a feature called “virtual shelves”. While the update makes its way to both iPhone and iPad, you’ll notice more differences in the iPad version. The iPhone version has a re-designed UI but virtual shelves is currently only available to iPad Square users. You can now add product variations and sort items into shelves. Hit the jump for a complete list of changes and more screens!

• iPad: Arrange your items into shelves, for easier browsing and faster checkout.
• iPad: Small, medium, large; chocolate, vanilla, strawberry – create variations of your items
• iPhone: Refined look and feel.
• Minor bug fixes.

Square has built a lot of momentum recently and a ton of small businesses have adopted it because of its flexibility, ease of use, and straight forward fee policy. I use it for my own business and actually just chose it as my pick of the week. Screenshots after the break. Do you use it? What do you think of the update?

[Free - iTunes Link]

Square app gets updated for iPhone and iPad is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb - The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog

Every day, TiPb gets flooded with announcements for new and updated iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad apps and games. So every day we pick just a few of the most interesting, the most notable, and simply the most awesome to share with you!

• Catalogue by The Find: Browse through all your favorite store catalogs in one easy-to-use iPad app. Update includes new layouts and grids, catalogues with their real look and feel, and 40+ name brand catalogues. [Free - iTunes link]

• YouMail: Handier, faster, and more fun than your iPhone visual voicemail. Update brings improved greetings and caller ID search. [Free - iTunes link]

• Burney: A world-wide secret organization assembled a science team in order to create an endless source of energy which resulted in the creation of a small orb of fire named "Burney" that rapidly jumped out of its container on the way to freedom. Help him venture throughout 3 spectacular zones, containing 45 levels without being trapped. [$0.99 - iTunes link]

• MetaTrader 5: Control your MetaTrader 5 account, trade and access financial information. [Free - iTunes link]

• iShot: Pirates: Draw your weapon and let rip a slew of bullets into the dastardly pirates invading your ship! But be careful to aim well though, you have a limited supply of bullets and will need to get maximum accuracy if you want to one day be named king of the pirates! [$0.99 - iTunes link]

Any other big apps or game releases or updates today? If you pick any of these up, let us know what you think!

New and updated iPhone and iPad apps for Monday, May 23 is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb - The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog

HP dominates the commodity PC market, selling more beige boxes and plastic laptops than anyone else on the planet, so what’s to stop their upcoming webOS-based HP TouchPad tablet from overtaking Apple’s number one selling iPad to become… um… better than number one? Nothing but wishing it to be so, according to Eric Cador, Senior VP of HP Personal Systems Group of the EMEA.

"In the PC world, with fewer ways of differentiating HP's products from our competitors, we became number one; in the tablet world we're going to become better than number one. We call it number one plus."

We’re huge fans of webOS, and it’s great to see the company aiming high, but the iPad isn’t just “number one”, it’s still so far ahead there’s no clear “number two” at this point. HP first has to release one tablet, make sure that release is competitive with iPad 3 (it’s too late to compete with iPad 2), and offer features, functions, and apps that taken together are compelling enough for someone to buy it instead of an iPad (or for people intent on getting “not an iPad” to choose HP over Android Honeycomb or BlackBerry Playbook tablets).

Given that, and given the comments Roger McNamee made before the ill-fated Palm Pre launch, it might behoove the folks at HP to make sure the TouchPad speaks for itself.

[The Telegraph via PreCentral.net]

HP: TouchPad will be number one-er! is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb - The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog

The Chronic Dev Team has decided to come out and issue a small update on its ongoing work on the iPad 2 jailbreak and iOS 4.3.x update. After the recent news that posixninja had recently said that the iPad 2 jailbreak would be "coming in weeks", the Chronic Dev Team plan on holding him to that.

As I'm sure many people have heard, Josh (posixninja) has recently been quoted saying the iPad 2 jailbreak is coming in "weeks", I know I have been very publicly abrasive and non-commital on giving any kind of timeframe or comment on this matter, but at the behest of Josh (in conjunction with his need for a swift kick to the ass for motivation) we're ALL going to hold him to that!!! I'm not going to get into extensive detail about this, but what I will say one of the missing puzzle pieces may have reared its head and cast a glance in our direction… take from that what you will.

iOS 4.3.x support was on hold for greenpois0n so the Chronic Dev Team could concentrate fully on the iPad 2 jailbreak. Now however, the course has changed and we may see support for iOS 4.3.x soon.

It has now become possible to easily update and execute a workflow to enable RC6.2 (tentatively speaking… mmm #dirt) to be released "soon"…

So there you go, that is the update from The Chronic Dev Team, still no solid release date yet but things are making good progress! How many of our readers are desperate for an iPad 2 jailbreak? Let us know in the comments!

[Greenpois0n]

 

Chronic Dev Team share some news on iPad 2 jailbreak and iOS 4.3.x support is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb - The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog

Bjango’s new racing game for iPad, Sideways, is now available in the App Store. Harkening back to the top-view racers of classic arcades, it keeps the same great emphasis on gameplay but puts the pedal to the metal on gorgeous graphics, immersive sound, and multi-touch iPad controls.

• 9 full race tracks, plus training track and credits track.
• Up to 10 cars on track at once.
• 3 game modes: League, Knockout and Time Trial.
• Nitro boosts, destructive pick-ups and… well… lots of carnage.
• Silky smooth 60fps graphics on iPad 1 and iPad 2.
• Extra goodness and fully anti-aliased graphics on iPad 2.
• Game Center leaderboards and achievements.
• Use left and right buttons or swiping to steer.
• Left and right handed controls.

The controls in Sideways, both tap and swipe versions, can take a lap or two — or in my case race or two — to get used to but after that, every drift, dodge, and drive, never mind corner, collision, and crash you get into is loads of fun. I had the pleasure of beta testing Sideways for the last couple of weeks, and while I’m so bad at racing games I sometimes wonder how I’m allowed to drive a real car, I enjoyed it thoroughly.

Bjango’s Marc Edwards was kind enough to talk to us about Sideways on the iPad Live podcast last night, which is already available via iTunes and will be up here on the site later today. Go grab the game, then go listen to us talk about it!

UPDATE: Bjango was kind enough to give us some promo codes to give away. Want Sideways for free? Just head on over to Twitter and re-tweet this:

Want a Sideways promo code? Follow @Bjango @TiPb and RT to enter! http://t.co/0003YUF

We’ll pick a bunch of you tomorrow and DM you codes.

Video and screenshots after the break!

[$1.99 on sale - iTunes link]

Sideways for iPad by Bjango now in App Store [Update: give away] is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb - The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog

Take this one with a 3.5-inch grain of salt, but Digitimes is reporting that Apple may introduce a curved-glass design in the next iPhone, which is expected to drop sometime this fall.

There has been a fair amount of buzz on the iPhone 5, and the latest being circulated around the supply chain in Taiwan is that Apple is going to adopt a curved cover glass for its next generation model

Apple has reportedly purchased 200-300 glass cutting machines for glass makers that they’ve stored in facilities until yield rates are at a high enough level to begin production. Apparently glass makers are reluctant to produce curved-glass for the next iPhone because of high capital costs, which is why Apple went out and got their own cutting machines

Various Android phones have used curved glassed before, and Apple has used curved-glass before in the previous generation iPod Nano, but this rumor goes against speculation that the next iPhone will be similar in design to the iPhone 4 with little aesthetic changes.

What do you think about a curved-glass design for the next iPhone? Sound off in the comments!

[Digitimes]

iPhone 5 to introduce curved-glass design? is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb - The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog

i3D, the app we posted about last month that showing a concept of glasses free 3D using Head-Coupled Perspective on the iPhone 4 and iPad 2 is now available in the App Store. There has been a huge interest in the technology with over 1.5 million views of the videos to date so it’s no surprise they released it!

i3D tracks the face of the user in real time. This information tells the app how the user is looking at the display and updates the perspective of the 3D scene giving the user the illusion that he is looking at a small window.

The app is available for free and will work with the iPad 2, iPhone 4 and 4^th generation iPod touch. If you want a refresh on how well this works, take a look at the video after the break. If you download the app, let us know what your think in the comments!

[Free - iTunes Link]

i3D app now available in App Store, head tracking glasses free 3D [video] is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb - The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog