7 ms·

Regardless of its eventual fate, I'm deeply grateful to the jailbreak community for speeding up Apple's implementation of the useful tweaks power users wanted m

Regardless of its eventual fate, I'm deeply grateful to the jailbreak community for speeding up Apple's implementation of the useful tweaks power users wanted most like 3rd party keyboards, picture-in-picture, control center, F.lux, etc. iOS is a better platform today because of the JB community, so cheers all around.

damnfinecoffee 9y ago
and yet none of the original devs get any credit or compensation for the ideas that were taken by apple which is kind of sad
- phoenix3200 9y ago
  We sure didn't. I think one guy got hired by Apple because he came out with an innovative app switcher, and I know a few others who got internships there, but largely speaking, Apple took over a lot of features we put into play. P.S. There's another reason why jailbreaks are few and far in between. There is close to no trust between the people who create the jailbreaks...I had several good exploits that became public without my permission.
  - fareesh 9y ago
    I remember it being a practice at one time in various IRC and other online communities to share hashes of the exploit payloads between teams so that they knew whether or not there was one or more than one, and whether or not they were going to collaborate.
    - willstrafach 9y ago
      Nah, hashes were public as proof (Usually later followed by a zip file matching the hash). On IRC, we generally knew who did or did not have vulns and trusted not to BS. That implicit trust did make things difficult.
  - willstrafach 9y ago
    Man, you forgot the most annoying aspect: No CVE credit when fixes came out until around iOS 6 or 7. Although not super consequential, it seemed petty to not do it.
- snuxoll 9y ago
  Apple is pretty rampant about Sherlocking, this isn't new.
- hellbanner 9y ago
  Yep, and they've closed down apps like Twitter interfaces and IIRC a camera app because they rolled the use into their own iOS.
acdha 9y ago
Is there any reason to think the jailbreak community inspired those? I'd think competition with Android, Windows phone, etc. was a lot more persuasive.
- willstrafach 9y ago
  There were many instances in which a feature became available via jailbreak tweak, then showed up in the next major iOS revision. Sometimes implemented in almost the same manner. It is possible that each instance was a coincidence, but that seems unlikely.
  - Laforet 9y ago
    A lot of the features, seemingly taken from the jailbreal scene, were rather obvious additions previously found lacking in iOS, e.g. custom keyboards, call filtering and a common filesystem. Tweaks may have hastened.their development however I am yet to be convinced that Apple relies on other people for ideas.
    - joshschreuder 9y ago
      Even so I don't think it would be surprising if they used the popularity of certain jailbreak tweaks to prioritise their own implementations
      - boyce 9y ago
        It'd be crazy not to pay attention to, I've no doubt they keep an eye on these things to inform their feature development
    - willstrafach 9y ago
      Safari Private Browsing comes to mind. The functionality and UI was very similar to the jailbreak "tweak" available for this. Also, the new iOS notification system on iOS 4/5 was directly nabbed from a jailbreak tweak, though it was because they hired the developer so I am assuming it was not "copied" in that case.
yoodenvranx 9y ago
swipe the spacebar to move the cursor is the one thing I missed the most when I switched from a jailbroken iPhone to Android. Luckily the Google keyboard recently implemented that function.
- 8ytecoder 9y ago
  Wordflow keyboard allows you to use the entire keyboard as a cursor with force press.
  - chrisballinger 9y ago
    The stock keyboard does that as well.
    - nvahalik 9y ago
      Just tried this and... wow!
      - Quenty 9y ago
        With force touch or just a regular swipe?
        rexf 9y ago
        force touch on the stock/default keyboard
    - jsmthrowaway 9y ago
      This just might be the best thing Hacker News has ever done for my life. Seriously, life changing.
      - throwanem 9y ago
        Meanwhile, I now have a legit reason to want a phone with force touch support, which the SE does not have. But the SE actually fits into my pockets and hands. So now I'm hosed either way. Thanks, ̶O̶b̶a̶m̶a̶HN.
justjonathan 9y ago
Five shortcut icons, how I miss you...
ivm 9y ago
Third party keyboards are still second-class citizens on iOS. They lag on switching, they don't have access to native keyboard settings, they crash debugger, their layers can't be viewed in Xcode, they sometimes break on app update and then users blame developers.
- rexf 9y ago
  Third party everything seems to be 2nd class citizens on iOS. Apple's apps get special provisioning (not to mention default system app status) that third party apps don't.
- epmaybe 9y ago
  I don't own an iPhone currently, but I haven't had any problems with Gboard on a number of iPhones that I've used that have it. Is your statement applicable to all third party keyboards, or most of them?
  - ivm 9y ago
    https://medium.com/@inFullMobile/limitations-of-custom-ios-keyboards-3be88dfb694 https://medium.com/@inFullMobile/limitations-of-custom-ios-k...
- kolinko 9y ago
  Also, worth noting, many of them send whatever you type in back to the companies that built them, and they resell the anonymised data. I run an ASO company, and received an offer from one of the keyboard companies for the purchase of the data of what people type into search. Reported them to Apple as a potential security risk. Apple didn't care.
verylittlemeat 9y ago
Not to mention simple cut copy paste editing and being able to easily place the typing cursor inside words
amelius 9y ago
Yeah but imagine this happening to the IBM PC in the old days. We wouldn't have lots of things now, including Linux.

damnfinecoffee 9y ago

and yet none of the original devs get any credit or compensation for the ideas that were taken by apple which is kind of sad

phoenix3200 9y ago
We sure didn't. I think one guy got hired by Apple because he came out with an innovative app switcher, and I know a few others who got internships there, but largely speaking, Apple took over a lot of features we put into play. P.S. There's another reason why jailbreaks are few and far in between. There is close to no trust between the people who create the jailbreaks...I had several good exploits that became public without my permission.
- fareesh 9y ago
  I remember it being a practice at one time in various IRC and other online communities to share hashes of the exploit payloads between teams so that they knew whether or not there was one or more than one, and whether or not they were going to collaborate.
  - willstrafach 9y ago
    Nah, hashes were public as proof (Usually later followed by a zip file matching the hash). On IRC, we generally knew who did or did not have vulns and trusted not to BS. That implicit trust did make things difficult.
- willstrafach 9y ago
  Man, you forgot the most annoying aspect: No CVE credit when fixes came out until around iOS 6 or 7. Although not super consequential, it seemed petty to not do it.
snuxoll 9y ago
Apple is pretty rampant about Sherlocking, this isn't new.
hellbanner 9y ago
Yep, and they've closed down apps like Twitter interfaces and IIRC a camera app because they rolled the use into their own iOS.

acdha 9y ago

Is there any reason to think the jailbreak community inspired those? I'd think competition with Android, Windows phone, etc. was a lot more persuasive.

willstrafach 9y ago
There were many instances in which a feature became available via jailbreak tweak, then showed up in the next major iOS revision. Sometimes implemented in almost the same manner. It is possible that each instance was a coincidence, but that seems unlikely.
- Laforet 9y ago
  A lot of the features, seemingly taken from the jailbreal scene, were rather obvious additions previously found lacking in iOS, e.g. custom keyboards, call filtering and a common filesystem. Tweaks may have hastened.their development however I am yet to be convinced that Apple relies on other people for ideas.
  - joshschreuder 9y ago
    Even so I don't think it would be surprising if they used the popularity of certain jailbreak tweaks to prioritise their own implementations
    - boyce 9y ago
      It'd be crazy not to pay attention to, I've no doubt they keep an eye on these things to inform their feature development
  - willstrafach 9y ago
    Safari Private Browsing comes to mind. The functionality and UI was very similar to the jailbreak "tweak" available for this. Also, the new iOS notification system on iOS 4/5 was directly nabbed from a jailbreak tweak, though it was because they hired the developer so I am assuming it was not "copied" in that case.

yoodenvranx 9y ago

swipe the spacebar to move the cursor is the one thing I missed the most when I switched from a jailbroken iPhone to Android. Luckily the Google keyboard recently implemented that function.

8ytecoder 9y ago
Wordflow keyboard allows you to use the entire keyboard as a cursor with force press.
- chrisballinger 9y ago
  The stock keyboard does that as well.
  - nvahalik 9y ago
    Just tried this and... wow!
    - Quenty 9y ago
      With force touch or just a regular swipe?
      - rexf 9y ago
        force touch on the stock/default keyboard
  - jsmthrowaway 9y ago
    This just might be the best thing Hacker News has ever done for my life. Seriously, life changing.
    - throwanem 9y ago
      Meanwhile, I now have a legit reason to want a phone with force touch support, which the SE does not have. But the SE actually fits into my pockets and hands. So now I'm hosed either way. Thanks, ̶O̶b̶a̶m̶a̶HN.

justjonathan 9y ago

Five shortcut icons, how I miss you...

ivm 9y ago

Third party keyboards are still second-class citizens on iOS. They lag on switching, they don't have access to native keyboard settings, they crash debugger, their layers can't be viewed in Xcode, they sometimes break on app update and then users blame developers.

rexf 9y ago
Third party everything seems to be 2nd class citizens on iOS. Apple's apps get special provisioning (not to mention default system app status) that third party apps don't.
epmaybe 9y ago
I don't own an iPhone currently, but I haven't had any problems with Gboard on a number of iPhones that I've used that have it. Is your statement applicable to all third party keyboards, or most of them?
- ivm 9y ago
  https://medium.com/@inFullMobile/limitations-of-custom-ios-keyboards-3be88dfb694 https://medium.com/@inFullMobile/limitations-of-custom-ios-k...
kolinko 9y ago
Also, worth noting, many of them send whatever you type in back to the companies that built them, and they resell the anonymised data. I run an ASO company, and received an offer from one of the keyboard companies for the purchase of the data of what people type into search. Reported them to Apple as a potential security risk. Apple didn't care.

verylittlemeat 9y ago

Not to mention simple cut copy paste editing and being able to easily place the typing cursor inside words

amelius 9y ago

Yeah but imagine this happening to the IBM PC in the old days. We wouldn't have lots of things now, including Linux.