[lh99]

I think it's amazing how dedicated so many people are to this package installer. Come on guys, it's a program that finds and installs other programs for you. Cydia may be a little rough around the edges, but nowhere near as rough as Installer was when it came out. Cydia had to be rewritten to work on iPhone 2.0, and so does Installer.

Anyone out there who thinks that Cydia is buggy is right -- it is, Saurik even says so himself. But if you're expecting that Installer will just ride in on a white horse and work perfectly on the first try with all of your favorite apps from 1.1.4, you're either totally wrong or going to be waiting a LONG time. There's nothing about Installer that would make it easier to port to 2.0. In fact, since Installer is all proprietary while Cydia is standards-based, they're probably having a harder time, which is why it's not out yet. Or maybe they're spending all their time on the unnecessary eye candy displayed in this thread.

Neither Installer nor Cydia control the quality or quantity of the apps, they just install 'em. Yes Installer could (in 1.1.4 and below) add unofficial sources and Cydia can't. Cydia already has some support for adding sources now, and Saurik has made sources the project's top priority, so I don't think it'll be too much more of a wait.

I think it's great that Cydia came out first for 2.0, because now it may have a chance to completely supplant Installer. Why do we need three package installers (including the AppStore)? What possible benefit does this have other than forcing you to check multiple locations for updates? What all of you really want is the quantity of apps available in Installer, not Installer itself.

Cydia is just plain better even if it's not as pretty. It's an open source project, which is the way a packager for an unofficial development community like ours should be. Who writes installer? Why do they do it? What if they start charging a fee to use it? What if they start installing spyware without your knowledge? How would you know? Nullriver is just some company (that's now selling apps on the AppStore) who has who knows what agenda for Installer.

Cydia is standards-based, so the feature set of the packager is much more extensive. Ever installed something in Installer that told you, once installed, that you have to install something else before you can use it? Yeah, Cydia and every other package manager in the world would have done that for you (it's called dependencies).

It's not any more difficult for devs to get their apps into Cydia. Why would the dev's bother hosting an Installer repository "someday" when Cydia is available now? Do you really think that all of the developers of your favorite applications are all done coding and are just waiting for Installer to appear? If they had apps finished, they'd be in BigBoss's source on Cydia already.

In short, I agree that most iPhone users would be best off waiting. But you're not waiting for Installer. If Installer came out tomorrow, most of your favorite apps still wouldn't be available. Wait until the apps you want are out, then jailbreak and use Cydia to install them.