There are two kinds of Linux users. Political and Technical.

The Political Linux user will have long abandoned any technology which hasn’t reached his or her standards of political extremism. They’ll have removed all Windows partitions and yet resent their bank for not catering to their minority needs and the iTunes store and themselves for wanting doohickeys like iPods. They’re the ones with the various shades of window manager and boasting about how power management works. Easy to spot. Easy to lose in a café too (just close your MacBook and leave. They’ll take a minute or six to shut down and get packed up.

The Technical user will, of course, be expedient with his or her use of technology. They’ll likely use a MacBook of some shape or size (because, you know, if you don’t you’re some sort of weirdo) which may or may not dual-boot to Linux or Windows. The only reason they have Windows is for their bank or maybe so they can actually play some decent games.

Of course, neither of these definitions explains exactly why there are so few games for Linux. It could be the (entirely correct) perception that Linux users don’t pay money for software. That’ll be a big one right there. And while companies can make a buck selling support for Linux as an operating system, selling support for games isn’t going to go far as people just hacked off when a game doesn’t perform.

What I wonder, however, is why there hasn’t been some sort of “x86 gaming platform” invented. I mean, almost all the hardware out there runs on x86 based machines now. Why not engineer a solution not dissimilar to the PlayStation where the OS was loaded from the disk at the same time as the game? Why hasn’t Intel pulled their finger out? We’d end up with a system where we bought CDs and DVDs, maybe even USB keys, with a base Linux kernel that would autodetect the hardware, run the drivers and autoload the game. The entire game would almost be copied into RAM and there’s your solution. Reboot to play, takes a few seconds to boot and doesn’t require using Windows.

Right. That’s the hard bit thought of. I’ll leave the easy bits (the technical side, the code, hardware, distribution, licensing, advertising and sales) to others.

1. Payfer Apps - you write your application, sign it, give it to Apple and they host it on the App Store and you get 70% of all proceeds.
2. Free Apps - you write the application, sign it, give it to Apple and they host it on the App Store for free.
3. Source - you write the application, give the code to someone else, they sign it themselves and then they can install on their own iPhone via XCode

The last method changes things. It’s no longer just a case of just releasing source code, there’s the signing too. You’re attaching your identity to the code. A bit more than just running ports or apt.

But it does mean that for the select few who can install apps (been accepted into the Beta program, paid their $99, uploaded their CSR, downloaded their certificate), there’s a method of swapping test code and with a bit of luck a community will build.

For my part, I’d like to play with Kalimba on my iPhone!

The Navizon Buddy Finder is probably one of the coolest ideas I’ve seen and something I’d be interested in a lot, however I think I’d work some on the UI before I would be happy with it. We’re going to see an explosion of IM and VoIP apps for the iPhone around then and I would really like to see location based information being available too.

I want to have lists of buddies, I want to be able to name locations and I want to be able to opt out of some updates easily.

As the iPhone is, in effect, always on, I’d like to be have it send updates to my ‘Status server’ so that instead of seeing

MJ
Love Minus Zero - Bob Dylan

in my chosen IM application - I’d have something like:

MJ
Unsent - Alanis Morissette
At Home

or

MJ
She’s so Lovely - Scouting for Girls
At the Daily Grind

or

MJ
You’re the First, The Last, My Everything - Barry White
Location Private

As I said, the UI of Buddy Finder isn’t to my taste but I think that’s more a question of polish and it’s amazing what they have achieved and an indication of what they could achieve with a documented SDK and no fear of a firmware update killing their release!

I can see this being a support nightmare as people get their unlocked phones and run the 1.1.2 update on them as they get home. Boom. iBrick. They’ll have voided their warranty with Apple so they’ll have to bring it back to the store they bought it from, only to find there’s no warranty there either.

Their argument, that the iPhone costs £899 over 18 months may be true but selling the iPhone for £499 is only going to catch stupid people. Once the unlocked iPhone is bought you’ll still need to attach it to a contract that will probably be £15-25 a month without unlimited data. You’ll also miss out on visual voicemail. And some networks, like 3 and Vodafone, don’t have any EDGE towers (at this moment it’s only O2 and Orange who do). So, adding on a £15 a month contract is going to cost you £499 + £270 = £769 for a substandard service and no warranty or guarantee of software upgrades. Add on a £25 a month contract and you’ve just exceeded the cost of the O2 contract (£499 + £450 = £949) for a substandard service and no warranty or upgrades.

I’d hate to be the guy to tell you that you just purchased an expensive iBrick. If you REALLY need the features of the iPhone but don’t want to change your contract, consider an iPod touch…

[This is a hint to take away the daft reflections in the Leopard Dock]

For our part we’ve been developing using the developer seeds from Apple’s Developer Connection and then testing on Tiger for compatibility. Why? There’s several reasons:

• 2 Million Macs sold last quarter.
• 1 million iPhones sold last quarter
• Untold numbers of iPod touch and Apple TV models sold

and these will all, from tomorrow, run Leopard (truth be told iPhone/iPod touch are already there).

We’ve been enjoying working with Interface Builder 3 and the rest of the new tools and we’ll be over at Mac-Sys on Friday to see if their copies of Leopard have arrived….

The point isn’t that you shouldn’t hack, or that you don’t have the right to do whatever you want with something you own. The point is that if you hack, you’re on your own. You can’t do unsupported things and expect to be supported for them just because you think these actions should be supported. It’s that simple.

John is right, though I believe that in the case of the iPhone, Apple should be offering a pay-for service for iBricks,. Not as a sort of We’ll sort it out, you rascals charge but something painful enough to make mom and pop think twice.

A friend of mine is keen on his Haxies and InputManagers. He runs a hacked version of the interface files so his menu bars and window decor looks very different to my own. He runs hacks here and there to configure the system exactly the way he wants it. And he complains bitterly of “graphic glitches” and moans that some windows don’t draw well.

I’ve gone through this debate with him several times. Remove the hacks and everything returns to normal so stop moaning. His defense - Apple should support his preferences. Let’s ignore the fact that as a mate of mine he’s getting a LOT of free IT support for his Mac from an Apple Certified techie.

It can’t be clearer. If you hack then you’re on your own.

This is abundantly clear to hackers. When we get some software, especially open source, and the futz around with the code inside, we know what we’re getting into. When we break something we don’t claim foul. The problem comes from individuals using the work of hackers to apply the hacks to their own machine and then crying foul when it breaks.

If you don’t have the knowledge to fix it, don’t break it. I mean, duh.