To make BitTorrent downloads on one device accessible on others, all the major BitTorrent clients have developed web interfaces. These allow users to start, stop and pause downloads from wherever they are. Transmission, the favorite BitTorrent client of many Mac users, also has a web interface, albeit a limited one in the eyes of most iPhone and iPad owers.

To fill this gap, developer Luka Hlastec coded a native remote access App for the Transmission client named iControlbits. The App, which controls the Transmission client daemon via the RPC protocol, has more features than the standard web interface making it both convenient and useful.

“I’ve made it for myself, for managing transmission downloads,” Luka Hlastec told TorrentFreak when we asked him about his motivation to develop a Transmission App.

“I’m using Transmission daemon on my NAS device. With this app I can connect remotely to my NAS from everywhere and manage downloads and Transmission server settings. You can also start Transmission on your Mac and enable remote access and then connect with my app.”

Among other things the App allows users to start, stop, remove and pause current transfers. In addition, it can connect to multiple Transmission ‘servers’ with the option to set and change speed limits for the server as well as individual downloads.

iControlbits, currently sold for $1.99 in the App store, works as advertised but could benefit from some extra features. In particular the option to add new downloads would be a nice one to have. The developer is aware of this and hopes to release it soon. “I have coded a feature for adding new downloads, which I’ll probably include in next version,” Hlastec told TorrentFreak.

But user satisfaction is not the biggest worry for the App – Apple’s anti-torrent police is the more imminent threat. As many people know, Apple is notoriously known for banning all applications that have anything to do with BitTorrent. This was kindly demonstrated three months ago when a new remote control App was booted from the App Store in just a few days.

Let’s hope that for Hlastec and Transmission using Apple customers, iControlbits doesn’t share the same fate. We have a few dozen promo codes for people who want to try the App for free.

Source: Transmission BitTorrent Client Has a Native iPhone App

“Because this category of applications is often used for the purpose of infringing third party rights. We have chosen to not publish this type of application to the App Store,” was Apple’s official explanation to the BitTorrent ban. However, we’ve now learned that those who are creative in the App submission process, can get through.

This week the BitTorrent based “IS Drive” App was approved by Apple and added to the App store. The application allows users of Imageshack’s torrent download service to control and add torrent downloads through a handy interface. In addition, the App shows screenshots of completed video downloads.

Although the audience for IS Drive is limited to premium Imageshack Torrent Drive users who also want to cough up $4.99 for the iPhone App, the approval is noteworthy because Apple has always banned everything related to BitTorrent. We are pretty sure that BitTorrent Inc. would have loved to release a free remote control App for uTorrent as well, but they decided to settle for an iPhone web interface instead.

TorrentFreak spoke to the developer of IS Drive, which was previously available on Cydia under the name “Jack Torrents”, about his victory and the chances that the App is allowed to stay on the App store

“I’m on dangerous ground here, and I know that,” Derek Kepner said. “I’ll probably add a search feature where it’s up to the user to manually add the torrent site they want. The app will not be designed to easily break the law and I hope no one intends to do so. But if a user is determined to break the law, what business is that of mine or Apple’s? They could do the same in Safari anyway, right?”

Kepner wrote the App because he loves Imageshack’s Torrent Drive service, and found himself wanting to queue something up to his Torrent Drive account when he was out of the house. This is exactly what IS Drive is for, and it works seamlessly.

Before submitting it to the App Store, the application already gained an audience at the Cydia store for jailbroken iPhones. However, by using just the right wording and avoiding the evil ‘torrent’ stigma, Kepner got it approved by Apple as well.

“I always had the thought that if I didn’t call the app a “torrent client”, Apple would probably let it through the review process. After all, there is no real torrenting happening on the client side. It’s *not* a torrent client. It’s an ImageShack Drive client,” Kepner told us.

“Plus, I didn’t see any reason for the app to be rejected in Apple’s recently released guidelines. So, I was very careful with this release to not use the dirty word ‘torrent’, and I’ll continue to carefully add new features, so stay tuned.”

IS Drive is now available in the App store for $4.99 for all Imageshack torrenters.

Source: Shocking: Apple Approves BitTorrent App For App Store

The timing of this announcement is perfect, as rumors persist that the iPhone 4/iOS 4.x jailbreak will be released today. As soon as it does, many hundreds of thousands of owners will rush to carry out the procedure which will allow them to run 3rd party software on their device completely legally.

UPDATE: Jailbreak has just been released and it is web-based – http://jailbreakme.com/

Of course, free pirate copies of material otherwise available from the App Store also become available, largely through the Installous app which is installed via Cydia, a piece of software included in the jailbreak package.

Installous is developed by the Hackulous community which is run by a guy called Dissident. TorrentFreak hands you over to him for the rest of this article.

Guest article from Dissident of Hackulo.us and apptrackr – undoubtedly the web’s largest resource for cracked iPhone Apps.

Firstly, I would like to thank TorrentFreak for giving me this opportunity to publish this article on their website. My name is Dissident, and I am an administrator of a website called Hackulous — an online community which has, for the last two years, been working to circumvent the DRM on Apple’s iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad products.

Apple has always been very stringent regarding what programs can be run on these devices. These products are distributed with a tightly locked down operating system and are forced to work only with Apple-approved software available on the iTunes App Store. Since the beginning, even before the advent of Apple’s portable iDevice product line, “jailbreaking” has been the attempt of talented reverse engineers to find ways to exploit the devices. The goal is to break out of the software jail imposed by the operating systems, so as to run any kind of software that users want on their devices.

Jailbreaking the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad is no different. Several millions of owners of Apple’s devices have used jailbreaking to push the boundaries of what is possible with their devices. Installer (now defunct), Cydia, Icy (also defunct), and Rock are well-known examples of distribution centers that jailbroken devices can access to obtain homebrew applications that really add a lot to the overall experience.

For example, Winterboard, the application that allows theming of the iDevice’s interface, is one of the most often downloaded items and is marked on every “must-have” list of homebrew applications. For iPhone users displeased with the subpar Messages app that came with the iPhone OS, there are at least two texting apps on Cydia, biteSMS and iRealSMS, that add features such as Drafts, Quick Reply, Quick Compose, and more. Before Apple introduced their backgrounding and folder features in iOS4, we already had Backgrounder and Categories. These are just a few examples of the freedom of customisation jailbreaking afforded us.

Eventually in 2008, Apple unveiled the App Store, a virtual marketplace for developers to sell their applications via an Apple-controlled channel. Since the beginning, one of the key missing features of this store has been a trial service, or even a refund policy. Considering that many competitor products have had these policies for years, some would expect them to be unquestionably employed by Apple, yet two years later in 2010 people are still being swindled by sub-quality applications.

The iPhone “cracked app scene” started from the idea of people being able to trial apps before sinking their money into them; an especially useful and welcome exercise considering that such a large number of apps on Apple’s App Store are pointless, underdeveloped, overpriced, and with deceptive descriptions to boot. In the two years that have passed, our community has enjoyed an explosion of activity resulting from the interest of many to trial iPhone apps. Many of our users appreciate the opportunity to be able to make a confident and informed decision when handing over their money for apps.

Understandably, the developers who paved the way for jailbreaking are not too eager to join our community. These are the forefathers of the iPhone jailbreaking scene, who have released tools such as Pwnage Tool, redsn0w, and Spirit, and they are collectively known as the iPhone Dev Team. The team members have shown disinterest in our community, citing that a considerable portion — perhaps a majority — of our users are pirates.

Various Dev Team members recently did an interview on TWiiPhone, and the consensus among them was that they detest anything remotely associated with piracy. They have stated that they believe piracy gives jailbreaking a bad name, and while I concede that point of view, I would like also to present three important details that demonstrate that Hackulous’ brand of activity is not causing as much damage as the Dev Team and everyone else may think.

1. Most of the pirates who use our services do so because they simply cannot afford to purchase the applications. One of the prominent members of the Dev Team, planetbeing, described the pirates who use our software as “predominantly in their early teens where money is scarce and time is abundant.”

Since these users have never had any intention or capability to purchase the applications whether or not cracked versions are available, developers of these apps are losing significantly less than what they believe they are to these people.

2. Another portion of our pirates are those who have the capability of purchasing iPhone apps, but not the desire. These pirates typically do not “need” any particular application for free, they just want whatever application that can provide a certain level of entertainment for them.

They are not so much making the choice between purchasing or pirating software A, but rather making the choice between pirating software A or B. So again, the profit lost attributed to this tribe of pirates has been overestimated; these pirates would not have forked over their money anyway, they would just move on.

3. Over three million devices are running our software, Installous, to download and install cracked iPhone apps. The people using these devices are Apple customers who are likely to purchase another device, purchase new Apple products, or refer their friends to Apple. As I have stated before, the people who use our services to trial iPhone applications actually help Apple more than they hurt it.

Why, you ask? If a majority of our three million users are pirates, the value in Apple’s devices is significantly higher: These millions of users, who would otherwise be incapable or unwilling to purchase apps, now have a rich source of entertainment that greatly enhances their experience with their devices.

Apple does not like piracy, but as long as piracy increases the value of jailbroken iPhones, they have no need to be passionate about stopping it. As music has shown Apple and Steve Jobs himself, DRM can always be defeated. Apple is in fact embracing piracy for what it can accomplish for their company.

4. Piracy also helps to expose an application to the masses, much like music piracy helps artists and bands get more publicity. Without cracked app sites like apptrackr, a lot of applications would be left languishing in the pits of the App Store among the rest of the 240,984 apps (at last count) available.

Only the top 100 free and paid apps and the top 10 free and paid apps in each of the 20 genres, summing up to 600 apps, get any considerable notice. A large number of apps only get to enjoy recognition from the people within the developers’ circle of influence. When they are placed on apptrackr, however, they are exposed to an extensive audience which make up millions of unique visitors a month.

Plenty of these visitors might have never discovered these apps if not for them being placed on apptrackr. Now that they have, developers stand to gain an arbitrary percentage of profit from those who choose to buy the app after trialing, rather than to not get any customers at all.

To sum up my points, the negative impact of piracy on the market has been overstated. Contrary to what people see on the surface, piracy is not truly as detrimental as developers claim. Even Apple is likely to be more concerned with unofficial unlocks than our DRM circumvention.

This article is not in any way an attempt to convince anyone, much less the Dev Team, to condone piracy, but more to demonstrate that the population has no need to feel that piracy is corrupting the concept of jailbreaking.

The community at Hackulous, for one, has never sought to blur the lines between jailbreaking and app trialing, and we do put in effort to educate our users about the difference. Our core community has always embraced the true spirit of jailbreaking, which is to free our devices from the grips of Apple’s closed platform, and while we parttake in circumventing Apple’s DRM, we have always disapproved of associating piracy with jailbreaking.

In addition, none of the Hackulous staff are pirates and our moderators are advised not to discuss nor encourage piracy. Appulous, Installous, and eventually apptrackr, were created purely for trialing purposes. I am aware that most people think we say this to save face or for plausible deniability, but it is the honest truth. We know that a large portion of our users do not use our services as intended; this is an unavoidable fact of life. There is nothing we can do about this except to shut down our services entirely, but to be frank, our legitimate users mean a lot more to us than the pirates who use our software for unintended purposes.

I would like everyone to understand and acknowledge that we would not be operating our websites and creating the tools if we were to believe that pirates are truly harming Apple or its developers. We have our conviction that they are not, and that is why we persevere.

Source: Hackulous: iPhone Pirates Don’t Hurt Jailbreaking’s Image

“In our ever-connected world, users want the ability to control their torrents on the go anytime, anywhere. So, in a continued effort to make our products more accessible we are introducing µTorrent Web for iPhone,” says Simon Morris, BitTorrent’s VP of Product Management.

“While µTorrent Web is currently only available as part of our experimental Project Falcon software, we continue to fill out the feature set prior to a large-scale rollout,”
Morris added in a recent blog post. Although we haven’t been able to confirm it, we assume that uTorrent web is supported on the iPad as well.

The Falcon release of uTorrent is key component of the client’s future. It is very similar to the standard uTorrent application but has several added features including support for the web interface and video streaming. Together with Griffin and Pheon, the Falcon project is part of the recently announced uTorrent Labs which give users early access to beta projects.

In order to use the web interface at web.utorrent.com users will have to download and install the latest Falcon release. After an encryption swipe and logging in, users will see the iPhone compatible interface that gives them all the controls they are familiar with in their regular PC client.

For those wondering why there are no BitTorrent-related apps in the App Store, it is because Apple notoriously bans all applications that have anything to do with BitTorrent. “Because this category of applications is often used for the purpose of infringing third party rights. We have chosen to not publish this type of application to the App Store,” is Apple’s official explanation.

Despite its desire to control every aspect of its business, Apple is not censoring the websites that people access on their phones just yet, so the uTorrent web-interface can be reached through the Safari browser. Fingers crossed.

Source: uTorrent Launches Remote Control for iPhone

“We’ve reviewed µMonitor and determined that we cannot post this version of your application to the App Store at this time because this category of applications is often used for the purpose of infringing third party rights. We have chosen to not publish this type of application to the App Store,” Apple wrote to the developer after a 4 month review process.

This is not the first time that Apple has excluded a BitTorrent-related product from its store. In May they also banned an application designed to remotely-control the Transmission BitTorrent client for the same reasons outlined above.

Interestingly Apple has no problem allowing Usenet related applications in their store. myNZB for example is an application that is available from the App Store although it’s similar in functionality to the BitTorrent apps that were rejected.

Despite Apple’s blockade, there is still a way to get µMonitor on your iPhone. Instead of throwing months of hard work overboard, µMonitor’s developer has recently decided to bypass the Apps Store and make the application available to ‘jailbroken’ iPhone users from the Cydia repository.

Thanks to Apple, uTorrent users who want to control their torrent via an iPhone application have no other option than to jailbreak their phone. Detailed instructions on how to get µMonitor working on your phone can be found on Claudio’s website.

Source: uTorrent iPhone App Rejected by Apple, Goes Underground

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.”

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

Source: appDowner: A BitTorrent Powered iPhone App Store

This system hasn’t had much serious competition but all that changed recently when a new service/app appeared. Known as ‘Mega’, this application/system currently offers direct downloads of a staggering number of App Store apps, over 4000 at last count – a full list is available here.

However, while Installous operates on a donation basis and doesn’t host any copyright infringing content itself, Mega offers its services via paid subscription – $9.99 for 1 month, $23.99 for 3 months and $41.99 for 6 months – which at least in part probably reflects the large costs associated with Mega hosting the content themselves.

It’s also alleged that Mega ‘borrowed’ some code previously developed for Installous and this along with the ‘pay for warez’ issue seemed to really motivate the Installous crew, and they set about ruining this money maker.

“If you’re forced to spend money to use a service, you should be spending it on the actual apps you get, not making some greedy pirate rich,” said coder Kyek. And with this Kyek created a new application known as ‘Grabulous’. Once downloaded from the Hackulo.us repo on Cydia, this software allows iPhone users to instantly download any of the 4000+ apps from Mega’s servers – free of charge. Grabulous was a command line app, but a GUI is now available.

The stated aim of Grabulous is to give iPhone users the Mega service for free, or alternatively crash the Mega servers through being overloaded by non-paying users. “Both options are cool with us,” says Kyek.

TorrentFreak spoke with Murda, founder of iPhone hack site FSMdotCOM who explained he had no time for Mega. “Grabulous should be saluted and applauded by consumers AND devs. This is common sense, it’s not cracking , it’s not hacking. Paying for cracked apps is a crime against common sense.”

“To be honest I think Mega tried it and thought they could outsmart everyone. But unfortunately (for them) the iphone/touch community proves itself to be a fantastic one once again,” Murda told TorrentFreak. “Mega had a major ‘uppercut’ from Hackulous when they released Grabulous but everybody smelled the fish right away, and we are not shy to send a message out to the people, and warn them. That is why we are here.”

Of course, the release of Grabulous didn’t go unnoticed by the people over at Mega and this ignited a round of technical cat and mouse as Mega tried to block Grabulous, with at least some initial success. Kyek promised a new version of Grabulous to get around these measures but at this point in time it looks as if Mega has taken the hint that charging subscriptions for access to warez is unacceptable to some.

In a statement, Mega has advised that they will no longer require monthly subscriptions but will instead ask for donations while supporting this revenue stream with advertising. Due to this new system, users will be limited on the number of apps they can download each day, dependent on server load.

“They should have done this since the very beginning,” noted Murda.

The Appulo.us service itself has been down for a week after they outgrew their hardware – and their budget. On the first day of taking donations Appulo.us received $1700 but said they wouldn’t return until they had received enough money to rent 3 servers (up from 1) for 6 months. The service is back in operation today.

Source: iPhone Pirating App Attacks Rival Pirate App Store

The BitTorrent client has added a new feature that integrates Vuze with several media devices. It allows users to automatically convert and transfer downloaded videos to iTunes, and stream the files to the Xbox 360 and PS3.

“With today’s release, we’re unlocking HD content and giving it wings to get from the computer to the other screens in our lives: TV and Mobile,” Vuze CEO Gilles BianRosa told TorrentFreak. “We think this is a big deal because a large majority of our users actually have these devices at home. Also, consumers want to control and own their content, an ‘Open Home Theater’, if you will.”

Vuze currently supports Apple devices including the iPhone and the iPod. The PS3 and Xbox 360 are the two gaming consoles that integrate with Vuze as well. More devices may be added in the future but no decisions have yet been made on which ones, TorrentFreak was told. In a recent poll, most Vuze users indicated that iPhone/iPod support was most wanted.

Once device support is turned on in Vuze, users can drag and drop downloaded video onto their device of choice. Vuze will then convert the video into the appropriate format and add it to the device’s library.

For iTunes, Vuze will import the video into your iTunes library so it can be transferred to your iPhone, iPod or Apple TV. For the PS3 and Xbox 360, Vuze will stream the videos from your PC or Mac directly to your game console.

The device support is a great feature for users who want to have an easy all-in-one solution that not only downloads video, but also makes it ready to play on other devices. Although Vuze has been focusing mainly on video lately, the client can still download other content as well.

It is good to see that Vuze is using the feedback from its users to improve their client, although it is impossible to please everyone and some may still prefer a more lightweight client. That said, the Vuze all-in-one solution will especially appeal to novice BitTorrent users, but even for the most die-hard users the new features will make a great addition.

Source: Vuze Integrates with iTunes, Xbox 360 and PS3

There were mixed opinions on the news. Some thought that it was great that there was an increased potential for a flood of cracked iPhone software, but a significant number of people expressed concerns that software developers would shy away from the format if they couldn’t guarantee a revenue stream.

Of course, the piracy/anti-piracy cat-and-mouse game was inevitable and today a new DRM system has been launched by Ripdev, promising to thwart those pesky iPhone pirates.

iPhone developer Ripdev says that its new ‘Kali Anti-Piracy’ system has been in development for some months now and today sees its official ‘beta’ launch. Ripdev acknowledges it has become trivial now for anyone to become a “cool hax0r” by cracking iPhone app DRM and distributing the results worldwide, but believes that with Kali, it has the answer.

According to Ripdev, the Kali system is a server-side service which can take any App Store application and place it inside another protection wrapper which, Ripdev claim, will prevent it from being pirated. Claimed to be fully compliant with the Apple iPhone SDK, Ripdev says that Kali-protected apps meet Apple’s approval process. The company adds that it has been protecting its own software (such as Kate, i2Reader Pro, iPref and Installer) with it for months and no-one has yet cracked any of them.

There is a one-off charge for developers to start using the system. If they sell their app for $9.99 or less it’s $100. Over $9.99 and it goes up to $300. Ripdev are also taking additional ‘royalties’ for each copy protected with Kali (in order to “keep the hackers on their toes”) of between 1% and 5% of the developer’s 70% cut.

Ripdev also has a message for would-be pirates;

“Expect more and more apps to be much, much harder to crack in the near future. ;)”

The trouble is that sounds awfully like a challenge. I’d put money on that being taken up. Quickly.

Source: New iPhone App DRM Claims to Thwart Pirates

A project started by a coder named ‘SaladFork’, Crackulous was officially only available to a limited number of individuals, but it quickly gained notoriety as it makes the process of cracking software ridiculously easy. The successor to the more fiddly xCrack script, Crackulous is now being developed by ‘Angel’ and has a full GUI. All people have to do is buy an app from Apple and click a button, it’s that easy.

Although the software package was publicly released just hours ago, the source for this version (0.9) isn’t yet available. Crackulous is set to be released as open source software so that many people can contribute to its development, with original dev SaladFork commenting, “I’ve filled the source code heavily with comments explaining exactly what it’s doing and how it’s doing it. My hope is that Crackulous can be a learning resource for all the prospective iPhone developers out there, and will be able to revolutionize the cracking scene by producing a standard for application quality and functionality that can easily be reproduced to great effect.”

Currently a few people are reporting that they are experiencing difficulty getting the release to run, while others have no problems. There are also a couple of minor acknowleged bugs, but these are expected to be fixed shortly.

There was a hint of irony during November 2008 as the future of Crackulous was put in doubt. An early version of the software leaked out and SaladFork retaliated by threatening to cancel the entire project saying, “I personally think this leak is absolutely disgusting, and downright insulting.”

The latest version of Crackulous is now officially available from the Hackulous Cydia Repo. Expect it to become one of the most downloaded iPhone apps ever and, of course, Crackulous is free of charge. Let the app-avalanche begin – it could be a difficult one to stop.

Source: One-Click iPhone App Cracker Released to the Public

Instead they engaged the cracker in dialogue, and the results have proved interesting. Not least, sales are up 100% and people are donating freely.

James told TorrentFreak that after the initial disappointment, they tracked down the cracker’s email address and surprisingly he responded. “Connie read the emails I sent and thought it was really amazing that we were having a civil conversation with the guy who was directly responsible for pirating our game,” said James. “I had decided to be really nice and accommodating in the emails to have a better shot at getting the pirate to respond.”

The email exchanges are detailed in our earlier story, but it’s developments since that really shows the importance of dialogue, with James telling us that the feedback has been excellent for the company. The game was originally up for purchase on the iTunes App store, but things have changed, he notes. “We decided to release a free version supported by ads to accommodate the issues that folks were reporting with the iTunes App Store, a.k.a the ‘Crapp Store’ – no try before you buy, lack of demo versions, and too expensive.”

The game hasn’t been withdrawn from the iTunes though, with James and Connie now preferring a dual-track option for the customer – a choice to either pay for it through iTunes or download the free ad-supported version. “We feel that a free app that still provides us with revenue through advertising is the best possible solution to the issue. Ads can be annoying for some people, so we’ve left the 99 cent version out there for folks who love the game but don’t like ads. Very hopefully, this will work for us and we can use the proceeds to fund future games.”

The ad revenue is being generated through AdMob, after the company approached James and Connie with their solution. AdMob is currently offering a promotion to around 200 iPhone software developers and giving them $5,000 worth of free advertising. “The folks at AdMob were awesome,” James explained. “They got us into the promotion and we’re now utilizing all of the tools they have available, such as in-game banners, click through reporting and detection to see if someone buys your game after clicking on one of your ads.”

James also took the opportunity to tell the game’s cracker, most_uniQue, about the new, free ad-supported version. He responded saying, “People love to hate me, but that just means they don’t understand. I’m glad you try to work things out properly and I hope you get good revenue from your ads. But the thing we all would like to know is this – did this adventure boost the sale of Whack ’em All?”

Good point. Before Whack ‘em All was reported pirated, the game was getting around 10 sales each day. Now, with all the extra publicity, sales are up to 20 a day, a nice 100% increase. Piracy might be viewed as a bad thing by some, but it sure beats obscurity it seems, and with extra revenue coming in from the ad-supported version, things seem to be looking up.

Additionally, a TorrentFreak reader suggested that the developer should put up a ‘donate’ button on the site so that pirates could still show their appreciation. It’s not a huge amount, but in just a few days people donated more than $75.

most_uniQue told James that he hopes that Apple learns from this situation and allows people to try before they buy, noting that he wouldn’t be surprised if Apple contacted him at some point, while hoping it’s to thank everyone for bringing the issue to their attention.

Hopefully it’s not, “most_uniQue: Wanted dead or alive’,” he joked.

Source: How Piracy Can Boost iPhone App Sales

James told TorrentFreak “We decided to develop a game for the iPhone while driving one evening and over the next couple of months put Whack ‘em All together in our spare time. Altogether, its taken us about 250 hours to develop the game with about 100 hours worth of graphics work and 150 hours worth of development, bug testing and submitting the app to Apple.”

The game is available for purchase via the iTunes App Store and has steadily been achieving around 10 sales a day. It’s pretty cheap, at just 99 cents.

On January 4th, Fairlady Media got all excited. Suddenly they discovered they had over 400 brand new users in a day, but after checking with iTunes, disappointment set in. Only 12 people had actually purchased the game. It turned out that the surge was down to pirates – someone had cracked the game and offered it for free on the web. While mildly encouraged that there is demand for the game, James told us he decided to confront the person responsible to “try and figure out why there was such a strong market for pirated apps.”

“I’m the developer for Whack ‘em All. I noticed you’re being given credit for cracking Whack ‘em All and making it generally available for free,” he said in his opening email to the cracker. “We (just my wife and I) haven’t even made enough money off of this to pay for the iPhone we had to buy to develop it on. Just yesterday 40 times more people got your version of the app than bought it off the app store!” James told the cracker he was curious about his motives. Surprisingly, the cracker responded:

“As many iPhone and iPod touch owners have discovered, Apple’s iTunes App Store has many flaws which render it useless to the common user,” he replied. “Apple has chosen to allow a multitude of ridiculous, worthless, poorly-represented applications through its ‘strict’ screening process, nearly all written by mediocre programmers with a dream of getting rich quick. Many of these programmers game the reviews system, misrepresent their application in the description, and generally try to swindle the honest buyer.”

The cracker, known as most_uniQue, went on to say that people are fed up with wasting money on these type of applications, so they simply stopped buying them. He then went on to offer a solution. “Apple could quite easily solve this problem by implementing a sort of trial period for each application, but they do not. The user is forced to buy blindly without ever getting to try the application first.”

most_uniQue told James that he became motivated to crack iPhone games after he bought a few that didn’t live up to their marketing hype, feeling he could help others ‘try before they buy’. “To solve this problem either talk to Apple to allow trials,” he said, “or you can release your game on Cydia with ads.”

James told TorrentFreak that he was happy with the extra exposure generated by the cracked copy of the game, while hoping this would translate into cash to be invested in the development of future projects.

The outcome of this exchange? “My goal would be to get a response from Apple about this,” he told us, while going on to reveal that a free, ad-supported version of the game (and future games) is in the planning.

Source: Game Developer Confronts iPhone Software Cracker

There was one problem though, since the iPhone doesn’t allow users to copy and paste text, adding new torrents proved to be quite a hassle. That’s where the uTorrent webAPP comes in, as it allows you to search for torrents on your iPhone, and directly add them to the download queue.

The iPhone web application uses isoHunt’s JSON interface to find the latest torrents, and is optimized to fit on a small screen. In order to browse through your torrents on the iPhone, you need to have the uTorrent WebUI installed on your local PC, with the iPhone GUI addon.

When you have everything setup, you can browse to louish.com/iphone, enter your IP and port, and you’re set. The IP and port will be saved on your iPhone, so you don’t have to enter it the next time you search for a torrent.

In the search results you will see a blue icon next to every torrent. A single click on this icon is all that’s needed to add the torrent file to the download queue. If you have secured your WebUI with a password, you will have to enter that before it’s added. For those people who are worried about security, the password, username and your IP-address are all stored on your iPhone and will not be sent to any external server.

We have tested the WebAPP, and it works like a charm. Adding torrents is achieved with a single click, and afterwards you can keep an eye on the download progress, or pause, stop or remove torrents via the iPhone WebUI. Worth a try.

Elin, you’re my everything!

Source: Search and Download Torrents from your iPhone

TorrentFreak spoke with Kevin Kowalewski of TorrentRelay, which is designed to bring BitTorrent functionality to platforms that don’t support a native torrent client, such as the PlayStation 3, Wii or iPhone.

As we had an iPhone to hand, we decided to give this system a go, choosing the easy mininova option (detailed below) and downloading a single .jpg image from a wallpaper pack. In just a few seconds the image appeared in Safari as promised, but due to limitations in the current version of Safari, it wasn’t directly possible to save the image. I know there is an addon somewhere that already provides this functionality, if only I could find it…but the file transfer component worked fine.

Here is a video showing the process on PS3. We follow up with an interview with Kevin below:

TF: Please introduce yourself and tell us a little about your background.

KK: My name is Kevin Kowalewski and i’m a student at Seneca College’s Computer Systems Technology program. I’ve always been interested in computers, Perl, PHP, Python etc and wanted to make a project over the summer.

TF: Could you give tell us a bit more about history about the project?

KK: A lot of work needed to be done in reverse engineering the BitTorrent protocol – my original plans were to have it completely “stream” the download from peers into a browser. Over time the project evolved, from this simple goal to download pieces in order and to get them to the browser, to the user friendly and stable code base you see today.

Mostly written in Perl, the TorrentRelay site aims to provide any user with the ability to download torrents. Any browser that supports Javascript will do great and any other browser will still work! Desktop browsers get the most enjoyment by unchecking the ‘Load only when complete’ check box but leaving Ajax support on.

TF: What technical challenges have you faced?

KK: There were many hurdles to overcome while on this project, Perl’s handling of memory for one, interfacing with the core downloader, managing all these users requests in a timely manner and allowing it to seed as well.

TF: So how does the system work exactly?

KK: The system itself is really straightforward. Simply visit the TorrentRelay site and there you’ll be presented with three ways to get your torrent:

1.) The most common way is “Browse and select”, which allows you to choose a torrent from your local file system.

2.)The URL method which allows you to simply copy the URL of where the torrent is online.

3.)The third option, my personal favorite, is by Mininova ID. Just jot down the short 7 digit code found on Mininova torrents, and hit ‘Get ID’. You can easily find the corresponding Mininova ID from the download link, just hover over it and you’ll see it in the bottom of your browser.

Next you’ll be presented with a list of the files within the torrent.

Leaving the “Load only when complete” checkbox ensures your browser won’t timeout when downloading. The server will temporarily buffer the entire contents of the file prior to sending it to you. On desktop browsers, unchecking this produces amazing results. As the torrent downloads the data is sent to your ‘Save as’ dialog, improving overall download time to you.

Leaving the “Ajax” checkbox lets you see updates in real-time. Most browsers (including the PS3) support Ajax, so leaving it checked it recommended. On smaller browsers (like the Nokia N95), un-checking this is a good idea. The constant Ajax requests are too much for its browser to handle. You’ll get the same updates, just in a list style.

Just click on the file you want, opening it in a new tab (or window) is recommended. Here you’ll see your torrents progress.

As it downloads you’ll get regular updates. If you unchecked the ‘Load only when complete’ box, you’ll get a save as shortly after it starts to download. Otherwise you’ll get the ‘Save-as’ when its complete.

TF: What are your plans for future development?

KK: Hardware-wise, plans for the future include getting a new server! The demand has been great and we’re in the process of getting a new dual Xeon, if anyone could donate it would be great, since I’m but a poor engineering student.

From a software perspective we’re planning on allowing users to run and view their torrent progress side-by-side, in a nice list format. Also, they’d be able to come back later and use the same previously downloaded data again. This way they can setup their torrents, close their browser and can come back at a later time to get them!

TF: Thanks for taking the time to talk with us and good luck with the rest of the project!

Source: Download Torrents on PS3, iPhone and Web-Enabled Devices

Created by former Napster programmer Nir Arbel, Soulseek can be used to share any type of file, but music is king on this network. Although mainstream music is available, if your tastes wander from the mainstream, if your musical dreams are a little avant garde and independent label-leaning, or you thrive on low frequencies and can’t get enough drum and bass or techno, Soulseek is for you.

If you like the sound of Soulseek and also happen to have a jail-broken iPhone, musical Christmas just came early. Last night, iPhone users with jail-broken devices saw a new application available for download from the ‘Big Boss’ source – ‘iSlsk’ – a free Soulseek port for the iPhone. TorrentFreak caught up with the developer for the lowdown:

TF: Please describe iSlsk

errrick: iSlsk is simply an application that lets you connect, download (and share, in the future) music directly from your iPod/iPhone through the Soulseek network. Anywhere, no computer required. That’s what makes “iSlsk” special and different from all other Soulseek clients out there.

TF: When did you start work on iSlsk and what motivated you to do so?

errrick: On February, 2008. What motivated me? Well. First of all, I saw all the capabilities this little gadget had and then thought “why didn’t someone already do something like this?”. A long time ago I did some little web application (just for fun) which let me connect to the Soulseek chat rooms from a web interface (written entirely in ASP.NET and C#). So I already had some experience with the protocol. Then I saw new applications being added everyday so I thought “Hey, making applications for the iPhone shouldn’t be that hard”… And thought how useful it would be to have a P2P client (first for me, then for the people) so I started learning and developing it myself.

TF: Tell us a little more about iSlsk from a technical viewpoint

errrick: In terms of code and programming, it’s entirely written in Objective-C (like most Cocoa and iPhone apps). The core of the application was made with the help of some open source Soulseek clients for mac (SolarSeek, SoleSeek). When I started developing it I was really afraid the iPhone/iPod wouldn’t be able to support for example, a high number of connections, constant byte transferring from peers and such. At that time I ran into thousands of problems which almost frustrated me, but most of them were really because I was a total newbie to Cocoa and Obj-C and not because of a hardware or software limitation like I thought.

TF: Thanks for your time.

Downloading and installation of the 224.5kb package takes a few seconds and then you’re away. At this point it has a basic file search and a display of any downloads queued along with progress. Media is downloaded to /var/mobile/Media/Downloads on any firmware above 1.1.3.

A nice feature is the ability to import the downloaded files straight into the iPod music database so they can be played immediately with the normal controls. There have been issues with this feature which are being addressed for the next update but in the meantime, here is a full workaround and great general tutorial from iPhoneFreakz.

Here is a video of iSlsk v0.1b in action:

The developer, ‘errrick’, can be found here.

Of course, Soulseek is not just for iPhone and as there are many thousands of unsigned artists populating the network, it’s worth checking out the PC version too.

Thanks to IIIALC

Source: iSlsk Brings File-Sharing to iPhone

The technical specifications of the device certainly make it possible. It has more than enough cpu power for it, assuming a nice, tightly coded client was written. The built in WiFi (802.11b/g) and use of the EDGE 2.75G wireless network data transfer system allows a fairly widespread availability of reception.

According to one of the developers of the ‘iPhone-binutil‘ project, going by the name ‘geohot’, the only obstacle stopping it from making an application like “iTorrent” happening is their current lack of coding ability for the iPhone. The file system is open, and media players already exist, if for nothing else than playing media from iTunes.

On of the downsides it that, for many, the 3.4Gb free on a brand new phone (or 7.4Gb, if you went for the bigger one) may not be enough to hold much data, but it all depends on what you torrent. Bigger problems are that the battery will last only in the region of 6-8 hours at best (according to Apple’s figures) which isn’t the greatest. Additionally, many users have reported the wifi connections being on the slow side as far as data transfers go. Using EDGE is a lot slower, about 30k/sec max.

Of course, the benefits are that you can carry it around with you, and you have the wide range of content available, with the benefits of torrent file’s typical pricing (free). Of course, time will tell. Meanwhile, the lack of MMS on the iPhone has been a small thorn in the side of many owners. However, there is help at hand in the form of a workaround. More details here

Source: “iTorrent”: A BitTorrent Client for your iPhone?

The Quicktime servers are crippled right now, good thing we still have BitTorrent. Note that this is not the official video.

And if you just can’t get enough, check out the The Complete Apple Keynote Collection, courtesy of The Pirate Bay.

Source: Download the iPhone Introduction on BitTorrent