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Why can't someone develop a lock screen calendar without Jailbreaking the iphone?

D

djrobsd

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
May 2, 2008
824
25
As I understand it, the iPhone API allows access to your calendar. And of course, the user has the ability to set their own Wallpaper. So, I guess the only thing stopping a developer from making an iphone lock screen app that accesses the calendar is the fact that the iPhone doesn't multi task, so you would have to manually open the lock screen program to generate a new lock screen.

Still, I would find this useful, I could do it every morning before work so my lock screen has my calendar for the day on it. ;) Do you think this would be possible? If so, I want a commission! LOL
 
And the fact that there's no API to set the wallpaper. So you'd have to open the app every time your calendar changed and then go to the photo roll to select the new image manually. Hardly worth the effort is it?
 
its impossible to fix this unless apple removes some of their restrictions..

What iPhone cant, jailbreak does ;)
 
Apps delivered through the App Store are heavily sandboxed with a limited number of APIs that allow access to iPhone OS.
Broadly speaking, anything that isn't initiated by touching an icon from the homescreen is not allowed in a third party app, push notifications and badges, notwithstanding. I think Apple internally doesn't have a problem with Jailbreaking and views it as a sort of firewall between experienced users and those who are less so and might be more perturbed or at least unable to fix issues incumbent upon OS level tweaks.
By the way, I use LockScreen, qTweeter, CategoriesSB, iRealSMS, and SBSettings all of which are great and require deeper integration into the OS than Apple's TOS allow for App Store apps.
 
I think Apple internally doesn't have a problem with Jailbreaking and views it as a sort of firewall between experienced users and those who are less so
Click to expand...

Not really. Apple is very much about keeping tight control over their platforms, and never responds well to anything that threatens that control. If they didn't have a problem with jailbreaking, would they invest the effort to constantly try to prevent it in new updates? IIRC some of Apple's talking heads have even tried to claim that jailbreak apps constitute copyright infringement.
 
I think it's outragous that Apple can't create an app for something so simple, yet so dam important. It's actually one feature that is making me re-think me having an iPhone, and not an Android. That, and there being no bluetooth!

For the time being though, I'll probably forget things as I'm not don't into my calendar all the time.
 
kleky said:
I think it's outragous that Apple can't create an app for something so simple, yet so dam important. It's actually one feature that is making me re-think me having an iPhone, and not an Android. That, and there being no bluetooth!

For the time being though, I'll probably forget things as I'm not don't into my calendar all the time.
Click to expand...

It's not that Apple can't, it's that they don't want to do anything that could possibly compromise system performance. It was kind of the same thing with multi-taking, sure Apple could have taken a rushed approach to it, but that would have made it sloppy and a huge burden on the battery (i.e a lot of Android phones). So for now this feature isn't available (unless you're jailbroken), but don't be too surprised if you see this added in a major update of the future.
 
Lock Calender was my favorite JB app. i also don't understand why they wont allow it or just make it standard. I really don't use my calender as much now that i cant see it on my lock screen
 
i bought lockinfo and now i cant even use it. it was one of my most useful jb app.

i think its stupid when they use the excuse of not offering a function because it 'burdens the battery life'. if they are so concern about battery life, dont offer games, apps, internet, etc and just make it strictly a phone for phone calls only. it would seem very stupid to offer apps/games just for looks and not for use. of course battery life will take a hit when you're using your phone. why dont they offer a better battery to comply with all the phone usage? anything you use on your phone will require you to use the battery unless its plugged in 24/7. then that defeats the purpose of a portable device/cell phone. i use my phone heavily for what it is offered.

my phone was jailbroken at 3.1.2 and now im running ios4 non-jb and see no difference in battery impact. apple is just a control freak. jb community has been going on since the 1st iphone. obviously the phone can handle all these jb apps and tweaking to the phone.
 
re: jailbreaking

While Apple wants to retain tight control over their platforms, I believe that has much more to do with retaining their ability to SUPPORT them easily than anything else.

If you've got to man your support hotlines with call centers full of relatively low-paid people reading from scripts and referring to technical notes provided for them -- it's far easier to do if you know a given screen looks a specific way.

Jailbreaking of iPhones also causes all sorts of potential problems that advanced users can figure out how to handle or manage, but typical users can't. Every time I jailbroke my iPhone, for example, it got noticeably more sluggish. There are a lot of "base libraries" of code thrown on it to make most of the unofficially sanctioned apps work. (BSD framework, etc.) Then you've got apps doing all sorts of unsupported things, probably using undocumented APIs in some cases. All of this can lead to random freezes or big performance problems. (Heck, the mywi app that promises ability to turn an iPhone into a 3G hotspot regularly got my networking so confused, I had to toggle parts of it off and do 1 or 2 hard reboots to get connectivity back to normal again!)

Once again, Apple doesn't want to try to troubleshoot all of that stuff on their dime. Instead, they'd rather take a stance that jailbreaking is clearly done "at your own risk" and "can void your warranty" -- and wash their hands of it. It's smart business from their perspective.


joebobthehob said:
Not really. Apple is very much about keeping tight control over their platforms, and never responds well to anything that threatens that control. If they didn't have a problem with jailbreaking, would they invest the effort to constantly try to prevent it in new updates? IIRC some of Apple's talking heads have even tried to claim that jailbreak apps constitute copyright infringement.
Click to expand...
 
polobreaka said:
i bought lockinfo and now i cant even use it. it was one of my most useful jb app.

i think its stupid when they use the excuse of not offering a function because it 'burdens the battery life'. if they are so concern about battery life, dont offer games, apps, internet, etc and just make it strictly a phone for phone calls only. it would seem very stupid to offer apps/games just for looks and not for use. of course battery life will take a hit when you're using your phone. why dont they offer a better battery to comply with all the phone usage? anything you use on your phone will require you to use the battery unless its plugged in 24/7. then that defeats the purpose of a portable device/cell phone. i use my phone heavily for what it is offered.

my phone was jailbroken at 3.1.2 and now im running ios4 non-jb and see no difference in battery impact. apple is just a control freak. jb community has been going on since the 1st iphone. obviously the phone can handle all these jb apps and tweaking to the phone.
Click to expand...

Well when you discover this 'super battery' that can handle all that then you take it to apple and show it to them. Until then quit complaining and blasting Apple about it, it a great product that most consumers love. And you DON'T HAVE TO BUY IT, Apple is completely within their rights to restrict what can and can't be done with the phone, It's their product. And we as consumers are completely within out rights to buy or not buy it. So if it's such a big deal don't buy it.

Yeah Apple is control freak, and they are a better company because of it. Whenever you let users run amok on a piece of hardware things go to hell real fast (take the android market for instance). Just because the phone can "handle" something doesn't mean it should be there (and I'm positive our definitions of handle are quite different, because to me being able to handle it means running without any noticeable performance drop, or possibility of damaging the device). And a lot of jb apps cause significant drop in battery life, availability RAM, processing power, and can interfere with several necessary functions and processes.
 
joebobthehob said:
Not really. Apple is very much about keeping tight control over their platforms, and never responds well to anything that threatens that control. If they didn't have a problem with jailbreaking, would they invest the effort to constantly try to prevent it in new updates? IIRC some of Apple's talking heads have even tried to claim that jailbreak apps constitute copyright infringement.
Click to expand...

Another reason for their patching of the holes that jailbreakers use is that these are also potential security holes. And jailbreak apps can be considered copyright infringement (take certain pirated sources for example), and when Apple's API's are used without their expressed permission that is definable as copyright infringement. And Apple is completely within their right to stop jailbreaking at any time they want. (but they can't because there is no such thing as a truly flawless OS with no security holes.)
 
narimonk said:
Well when you discover this 'super battery' that can handle all that then you take it to apple and show it to them. Until then quit complaining and blasting Apple about it, it a great product that most consumers love. And you DON'T HAVE TO BUY IT, Apple is completely within their rights to restrict what can and can't be done with the phone, It's their product. And we as consumers are completely within out rights to buy or not buy it. So if it's such a big deal don't buy it.

Yeah Apple is control freak, and they are a better company because of it. Whenever you let users run amok on a piece of hardware things go to hell real fast (take the android market for instance). Just because the phone can "handle" something doesn't mean it should be there (and I'm positive our definitions of handle are quite different, because to me being able to handle it means running without any noticeable performance drop, or possibility of damaging the device). And a lot of jb apps cause significant drop in battery life, availability RAM, processing power, and can interfere with several necessary functions and processes.
Click to expand...


ive never said anything about a "super battery". i have accepted the fact that battery life is what it is. i have accepted the fact that apple will always be a control freak, hence why i join the jb community. jb community has always been 'use at your own risk'. anybody dipping their feet wet into jailbreak knows what they are getting into. i never complaint about owning an apple product. i buy them because i like them. where in my post have i complaint about their product?

have you ever jailbroken a phone before?
 
Think about Windows... Microsoft Windows.

The moment that they lost control over the hardware that it could run on, they lost the ability to support it adequately. It could run on all flavors of hardware with all sorts of different combinations of 'stuff' and all manner of warped drivers and other ancillary software. Their support job just got so much harder.

I'm sure that's why Apple hasn't released OSX for non-Apple hardware. There is just too much variation in the possible permutations to be able to support it effectively... You open a whole huge can of hurt doing that...

I hated my Treo because it crashed a lot. Having more control over the iPhone is something I can will to Apple because I want the damn thing to work. It is 'open' to a point, and perhaps Apple has too tight a control, but we sacrifice some things for the general usability of their devices...

EDIT: On a related note, on an Apple forum, I asked if anyone had been successful in jail breaking an iPad and received a rather terse email from a moderator at Apple. I had broken some rule by advocating the violation of their license to us or some such by asking about that on an Apple forum. It was a surprise because I didn't know that Apple lurked on their own forums. I was surprised by that but it's their game there. I wouldn't want to jail break my iPad but I was curious to see if anyone had done it and if anything about the wi-fi problems could be determined from it. I thought it an innocent question. Funny that I was 'advocating' anything like that... Whatever...
 
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