appDowner: A BitTorrent Powered iPhone App Store
Written by enigmax on June 26, 2009To users of Cydia, Icy and Appulous, alternatives to Apple’s App Store are nothing new, but soon there will be a new and unqiue player in the market. Promising to become “the most beautiful application repository on the market” appDowner will be the first App Store competitor to use BitTorrent technology.
During the summer of 2008, iPhone developer Alec Renolds announced he was working on a BitTorrent application that would be capable of automatically downloading and installing iPhone applications. Provisionally named ‘AppDowner’, the project looked promising but faltered a little due to some personal issues.
Now things are back on track as Alec has teamed up with a new designer Miles Lorry to revitalize the newly and slightly renamed ‘appDowner’. Available in beta “soon”, appDowner will be compatible with iPhone 3.0 devices, so what’s the deal?
“The concept of appDowner has changed slightly, from being a simple ’smart’ BitTorrent application to a full on App Store replacement,” explains Alec.
“No longer will you have to remember and type in the URL to your torrent file, simply click the “Store” tab on appDowner, and you’ll be brought to a beautiful interface designed by Miles (which isn’t quite ready to be shown off yet, but he assures us that it will be very, very soon!) which will allow you to search and find the apps you’re looking for.”
appDowner will be available soon
Unlike the official App Store, there will no iTunes-like approval process to get your own applications onto the appDowner store, with Alec promising that submissions to the system will be accepted within a week.
While BitTorrent is employed to serve apps to the user, the appDowner torrent client can also be used for non-appDowner downloads too
When released in beta, appDowner should become available via Cydia/Icy.
Stay tuned for updates
Previously: The Pirate Bay to Sue Sweden for Human Rights Violations
Next: Michael Jackson’s Death Causes Surge On BitTorrent
21 Responses
nice job
It’d sound interesting if the iPhone wasn’t inherently gay.
Not bad, I just sold my iPhone for a Nokia 5800 which I also installed a torrent client onto though.
I found a beta version of this here. Even though it’s a beta it’s pretty bad ass!
http://zoomtorrents.com?file=appDowner_Beta_2
cant wait for this
I wonder if it automatically shares your private data / makes it possible to track you via the iPhone app store while downloading pirated stuff. Like sending a logfile…maybe…?
I’ll stick with my 5800XM and it’s BT-client, like#6 ;)
”PIRACY”must go on. Fock that stupid moneytrickers. no copyright no license! kopimi!!!
Hah sounds very cool. May be it’s time to jailbreak mine.
Its a good way to get fringe apps on your iPhone. The idea of using Bittorrent on a wifi or 3G network is terrible though. Bittorrent is already a network resource hog, so to unleash that on a fragile network is only going to cause problems for other 3G or WiFi users. You’re not sharing 700MB movies, these apps that are just a few megabytes. You can host the apps on a web host for $10 a month.
Good there isn’t going to be an approval process. I’m sure some good apps apple rejects will show up there, I’ll be using appDowner.
http://www.disabledtech.info/
“…new and unqiue player…” >> new and unique player
Nice to hear this anyways, sounds like there will be some more unusual apps appearing soon, stuff that the official appstore would never allow…
Let’s think logically why it won’t work:
1. Battery issues. There’s no way you could download ANYTHING of significance while on the road.
2. Connection issues. We all know ATT 3G isn’t any good.
3. It has it’s own DAMN protocol. One flip of a switch and ATT can block it completely.
Assuming you’re on wifi then:
1. Battery issues still. And if you’re at home on your wifi network, why the HELL would you download a torrent on your phone instead of your PC?
Now here’s why it won’t as an alternative for Apple App Store/Cydia/Icy/Appulous either:
1. There are MANY apps the size of torrent files. Why would you want to download a torrent file then another file the same size?
2. It still won’t work for large files for the reasons listed above.
Has it not occurred to anyone that for this to work, someone needs to be seeding?
If the author makes appDowner run in the background, there will be seeders, along with a sudden rise in people whining that their battery lasts 5 seconds.
If the author doesn’t make appDowner run in the background, there will be no seeders, so you’d have no reason to use it over other “App Store alternatives”.
This is a lose-lose situation in either case. This can’t possibly work.
Also, anyone who claims this is “the most beautiful application repository on the market” should think about getting their eyes checked. Look at the screenshot; even people with bad taste in UI design can admit that’s one of the most hideous apps out there.
Adam Savage gets $11,000 AT&T bill for a “few hours of web surfing in Canada”
http://www.boingboing.net/2009/06/26/adam-savage-gets-110.html
Seriously, this is why metered plans don’t work and using cellphones(or mobiles if you prefer) over network carriers doesn’t work and will not be attractive to many, but when phones are allowed to access other networks that would be great.
That is why I have to say that although is great that the software is already here the hardware is not, still waiting for the android thingy to take off though :)
Anyone that says the iPhone sucks is either very very ignorant or can’t afford one. That is a fact. I would NEVER want to use any other phone.
@15 – Sean, stop trying to fulfil your life with an iPhone because you have a small cock.
It’s just a phone, a piece of technology running Unix..
Personally I found the iPhone and the software very restrictive… stuff like sending files over Bluetooth is something not possible with an iPhone.. but yet something I can happily do with my Nokia N95 (and most other phones).
Then you have upgrading to the 3.0 Firmware, I had to upgrade an iPhone and it bricked itself, I had to manually restore back to the 2.2.1 firmware. Again, I’ve updated my N95 several times with the Nokia Updater, and my phone has never bricked itself.
The iphone is pretty shit with restrictive fixed contracts. Anyone like Sean claiming it’s the next coming of god is a dick.
i guess some of the writers of the commands missed the point: appDowner is not there to download pirated/cracked iPhone apps. Its an equivalent of the AppStore with its own apps.
(Please correct me if im wrong)
That’s correct, masquerade. But there will be no restrictions, meaning that any app you create under a free license can be put on appDowner.
I have recently jailbroken my iPhone 3G pretty easily and installing anything cracked is a piece of cake and relatively fast. This application has alot of work cut out for itself if it’s going to compare to appulous as far as downloading things.
Apple sucks! Their empire is a totalitarian regime. They recently rejected a Commodore 64 emulator for no sensible reason after semi-preapproving it.
http://toucharcade.com/2009/06/20/full-commodore-64-emulator-rejected-from-app-store/
http://gizmodo.com/5298675/fully-licensed-commodore-64-emulator-rejected-by-apple-app-store
http://www.gamespy.com/articles/996/996663p1.html?RSSwhen2009-06-22_043500&RSSid=996663
Here ya go… took 2 mins to download :)
http://www.zoomtorrents.com/?file=appdowner_beta_version2.tar.gz
6 references to this post
Responses are closed
All remaining responses will continue to be archived. Use the TorrentFreak forums if you want to discuss something.