Somebody call Steve Jobs, there's been a Jailbreak!

Yesterday I was looking an application called Twinkle that I wanted to try. Twinkle is a Twitter app for the iPhone that not only can post your tweets to the Twitter web site, but ties into the Google Maps application on the iPhone to add your location. As a geek I have to say that's pretty cool technology. The only problem is that Twinkle is not a web app, it has to be installed on the iPhone itself. This meant that if I wanted to run Twinkle I'd have to jailbreak my iPhone.

Jailbreaking the iPhone has been happening for quite some time. The first person to do it was George Hotz, a 17 year old from New Jersey, and required a combination of hardware and software hacking. In the months since then a number of software only unlocks have become available on various web sites. Still, I wasn't sure that jailbreaking my iPhone was something I was comfortable with. Apple has made it clear that they don't like this kind of thing, even going so far as to post warnings with the the iPhones on display at Apple Store locations informing potential customers that third party software could be damaging to their phones and that installing such software would void the warranty.

Then again, Apple also said that third party apps would never be allowed on the iPhone. It took less than six months for that position to be reversed, and the iPhone hacking community has proven again and again that new ways of jailbreaking the iPhone can be rolled out faster than Apple can patch the old ones. I spent a few hours reading up on the various methods available, and then decided to give it a try.

I decided to use ZiPhone from the ZiPhone Blog. It's a slick piece of software, and even has a built in feature to "roll back" the iPhone to it's original software. After downloading I launched the software and plugged in my iPhone. Less than two minutes later I had a nice to icon on my screen called "Installer."

Installer is pretty cool It pulls from a variety of source libraries, much like Linus source repositories. There are a number of application packages available, ebook readers, games, tweaks for the iPhone camera and a bunch of other goodies. Given the popularity of the GTD system of I had expected to find some good personal organization but I didn't see anything that appealed to me. Hopefully when the iPhone Application Store opens in June there will be something there to challenge my Franklin/Covey organizer.

And Twinkle? It rocks!