A question regarding iOS.
 

I have this question that has been bothering me for a while. How do the mods on the iPhone work? I mean, everyone's been saying iOS is the most closed OS, even with Cydia, but still able to mod crazily. Is it an overlay? Or is it just the burning sensation of the developers?

Thanks.

Re: A question regarding iOS.
 

It is the most closed OS until you jailbreak it.

ps: Not that it becomes a proper smartphone even with JB, but still... it's better than its factory state.

Re: A question regarding iOS.
 

I think its patch which roots it like android.
I just bought a tablet with ics 4.0.1 and rooted it.
Android isn't much better... I cant get the dame thing online at home
because android hasnt enabled IBSS adhoc mode!!!

Re: A question regarding iOS.
 

Rooting is not a patch on Android. It refers to getting the "su" binary on the device.

How open is it after jailbreak?

i think both of them at the same time. When an idevice is jailbroken, you can add pretty much any ability to the device that is non-existent or improve the existing ones. But this also comes with a price. The more you tweak the device, the more it consumes cpu and ram.

I see. So is it somewhat an overlay for iOS (the mods)? Or does it replace the system files? If it does, would that mean it is somewhat really open?

Re: A question regarding iOS.
 

Depends on your definition of "open". If fileA can be replaced by fileB and you think that's being open, then I guess iOS is open. But then any other OS is equally open, as long as you have the ability to replace files being root/administrator, which is the case for most OSs.

Some of them are overlay and some of them are replacements. For example custom launchers are usually overlays but custom lockscreens are mostly replacements. Also lots of tweaks are added mods rather than overlays or replacements. Jailbreak is something more like extending the os.
Let's say ios is not "more open" but more moddable than most os's out there. (with jailbreak ofcourse)

Re: A question regarding iOS.
 

I guess we can also say that one of other factors that iOS is moddable is the developers, right?

Re: A question regarding iOS.
 

rooting != jailbreaking...

At most cases yes, years of hack development with many developers worldwide brought ios to this point. But also jailbreaking reveales lots of open holes for modding in the os.

Re: A question regarding iOS.
 

I'd like to point out that tweaking can also remove things thus consuming less CPU and RAM.

Re: A question regarding iOS.
 

what are the most innovatite tweaks in ios:\

Re: A question regarding iOS.
 

it uses mobile substrate:

MobileSubstrate is a few system shared dynamic libraries (.dylib files, similar to Windows .DLLs) that allows developers to write programs that extend programs they didn't write.

For example, SpringBoard, the iPhone/iPod Touch "shell" (basically the program that allows you to launch applications) has code in it to launch applications whenever you tap their icon. Using MobileSubstrate, you can write a program that will "inject" itself into this code, so that instead of running the ORIGINAL code that SpringBoard provides, YOUR code will be run.
In the case of the SpringBoard app icon launch code, instead of launching the app, tapping the icon would do something completely different.
In this way, you can modify the behavior of other people's applications (even Apple's built in apps), without having their source code.

MobileSubstrate loads 3rd-party .dylib files ("MS extensions" or "MS libraries" or "MS plugins") and injects them into the programs that they target. Since developers make mistakes, it's entirely possible that injecting a faulty MS extension into SpringBoard will make SpringBoard crash (and then you would need to reboot your phone).
Because this may happen, MobileSubstrate ALSO provides a "safe mode" for SpringBoard that will DISABLE ANY 3RD PARTY MS EXTENSIONS.
This is similar to Windows' safe mode, where it disables all drivers upon system startup. MobileSubstrate AUTOMATICALLY activates its safe mode when it detects that SpringBoard has crashed (due to one of the installed MS extensions). When MS's safe mode is active, you can remove any bad extension that is crashing SpringBoard. After rebooting your phone, safe mode will not be active and all MS extensions will work normally.

MobileSubstrate, written by Saurik, is a required component (aka Dependency) of many jailbroken programs, such as Winterboard, QuickGold, SBSettings, Five Icon Dock, Clippy, Backgrounder, etc.

Source: http://www.ifans.com/forums/threads/...strate.103583/

Yes there are also patches for that.

The innovative tweaks are mostly capabilities that we have default on our devices like bt file sending, file management etc. but there are some tweaks that are pretty creative and are visually nice. Like springtomize, barrel, graviboard and 3dboard/deepend. Also some other stuff like that involves app, system hacking and shsh backups which is used for reinstalling older versions if the newer ios sucks or no jailbreak.

Re: A question regarding iOS.
 

We must distinguish between closed source and walled garden, something can be closed but not a walled garden. Windows Mobile 6.5 as well as previous versions were closed source but were not walled gardens you could install applications from non Microsoft approved sources. iOs is still closed source but ceases to be a walled garden when you jailbreak it and is a walled garden when you don't. Maemo is partially closed source such as many of the applications and user interface are close source but it is not a walled garden. Android is from a platform level open source (in theory anyways) and is not a walled garden as you can install apps outside of google's reach. Hope that helps.