Installer 4 Preview - PICS

[zauriel]

Originally Posted by vinividiiphone

that is correct, i will be forced to use installer if the applications i want are not available otherwise. apps available will choose the installer for most. i fully anticipate using both installer and cydia.

i refer you to the many posts outlining why the technical and licensing arguments are relative, in case you'd like to respond to them.

But the whole argument so far has been that it doesn't matter whether you use Cydia or Installer in terms of app availability, it's the developers who must port their apps to 2.0. So don't be mad at Installer users if a dev decides to make their repository Installer friendly and not Cydia friendly. According to Saurik, most devs find it easier to dev for Cydia, so there's not much merit in thinking there will be soooo many apps that will be Installer-only that you just can't live without. If you plan on using both, great, but commenters on iPhone boards won't be controlling whether Installer lives up to your expectations.

And no, I don't care to go back over any posts concerning licensing or technical arguments, simply for the fact that I don't care about them. I know what I like, and I've never argued for others to use Installer over Cydia, unlike the plethora of Cydia backers on the flip side. I say use what you like without trying to demonize the competition or its user base.

[gtemelkov.84]

when this installer will b available?

[nategs500]

My 2 cents...

I used installer because on my 1st gen iphone I used Ziphone which installed it automatically. There was little point in installing Cydia at the time as all of the apps I needed were availible through Installer. Now it is the other was around so I will stick with Cydia untill there is something on installer that I would like to install that is not availible on Cydia.

I dont think slinging mud helps the situation but this current delay in release of Installer has given it a chance so if it is as good for developers as you say it is let it shine and it may get some apps that can't run on installer.

[ipodlover77]

any ideas when it will be released?

[Jeckel]

I found this comment on his site:

# slavikus пишет:
1 Август 2008 в 21:29

"It doesn’t matter, Installer won’t be ready until late October. Too many problems, plus I found out it can’t work with Mobile Enhancer, it’s a real program."


# slavikus пишет:
1 Август 2008 в 21:46

"Installer 4 is going to come out from RipDev and Nullriver in the near future, so we can sell Kate and the tethering program that AppleStore just put down. It’s going to cost 24.99 euros with 1 year upgrades, which will eventually be 2 months since Apple is changing the frameworks again in 2.1 firmware, where we are going to charge 15 euros for old customers and 25 for the new. The icons in the new Installer are going to be awsome though."

[SBik2]

i have heard that it will be released tomorrow
LINK CLICK

[gtemelkov.84]

yooo
when finally installer will b out???im really so between 1.1.4 and 2.0.I want to have the 2.0 but without the nice apps, that comes from installer its not good at all, but also 1.1.4 start to sux 4 me, so really dont mind to go on "higher level", BUT where's the installer? I read somewhere that it will b released today, on 2nd aug, but nope...still nothing. I pwned today 4 1st time, i read millions of articles and small gossips about it, i search 4 it in cydia (on 2.0 already), but no, no, no...I know, that whoever is working on installer, is working hard, and really no reason for him/her cause in the end its all for free, it will remain just the fame of whats done, but hey...we r from one community and we REALLY NEED IT!!!! Im really dying without my fring and summer board((its so ugly this black screen, and all my friends r away without my precious fring...
anyway, really hope that SOON we will have what we dream of, a brand new installer, that will make us all happy))
thanks 2 u all folks, dont know exactlly 2 who i have 2 thank, but really...BIG THANKS
G.

[rotaryheadrx7]

Originally Posted by gtemelkov.84

yooo
when finally installer will b out???im really so between 1.1.4 and 2.0.I want to have the 2.0 but without the nice apps, that comes from installer its not good at all, but also 1.1.4 start to sux 4 me, so really dont mind to go on "higher level", BUT where's the installer? I read somewhere that it will b released today, on 2nd aug, but nope...still nothing. I pwned today 4 1st time, i read millions of articles and small gossips about it, i search 4 it in cydia (on 2.0 already), but no, no, no...I know, that whoever is working on installer, is working hard, and really no reason for him/her cause in the end its all for free, it will remain just the fame of whats done, but hey...we r from one community and we REALLY NEED IT!!!! Im really dying without my fring and summer board((its so ugly this black screen, and all my friends r away without my precious fring...
anyway, really hope that SOON we will have what we dream of, a brand new installer, that will make us all happy))
thanks 2 u all folks, dont know exactlly 2 who i have 2 thank, but really...BIG THANKS
G.

Seriously? Please read a little, the applications themselves need to be ported to work with 2.0, just like Installer had to be ported. Having Installer won't make Fring or SummerBoard magically work with 2.0. They need to be ported by the developers.

What works with 2.0 is already on Cydia. Having Installer won't make more apps magically become available.

If you want to get rid of the "black screen" I suggest installing WinterBoard, available through Cydia.

[epicfail926]

people are saying that it could be up by the next few days and as late as the next few weeks....CANT WAIT!!!

[han_mun223]

you can use that in iphone 1.1.4 ryt?

[codyoneil4@htmail.com]

I know theres allot of repeating on this thread and I've tried to read the whole thing..took awhile but heres a question will you be able to install the new installer from the old one (1.1.4.) and not cydia?

[saurik]

Originally Posted by zauriel

Thanks for the informative post, Saurik. However, you point out exactly what I was saying -- that for most users, this behind-the-scenes stuff is no concern of ours. We see the product, the face of it, the features and what's available. And, I'm sorry, while you seem to indicate that Cydia offers more apps, I have never really found that to be true ... that is, speaking solely of actual applications that are user-driven (games, multimedia, mainly apps with icons on the springboard, etc.) rather than back-end (developer apps, codes or tools that most users would have no idea what to do with). With maybe one or two exceptions, I have always found what I needed on Installer. But there are hundreds of apps out there and of course I've never sat down and gone through them all (it's really subjective anyway as you could add sources from a number of places to access more apps).

There are fewer apps available, period, anywhere, because people are using Installer and also not using Cydia. Using both isn't a problem if everyone were using both and not forcing developers to support Installer by ignoring Cydia then we wouldn't have a problem; options are good, competition is amazing. The issue is that by only ever using Installer users are pretty much demanding that it be supported, which means that the costs of constructing applications is higher, which means fewer applications. Put another way: you won't find more applications in Cydia because we (the developers) are wasting our time trying to support Installer (and especially BSD Subsystem) because we have to to get users, in turn because you demand it.

In essence, what you are doing here is ignoring second order effects.

We don't have J2ME, for example, support anywhere because I had to waste my time writing Cydia because NullRiver stopped working on Installer sometime around October (and only started up again due to competition by Cydia, and only just long enough to add a search feature). Installer still doesn't work well enough to package something that complicated reasonably correctly, so when and if it is ready you still won't get it via Installer. In turn, the fact that you won't see it as you believe the same packages should be available by either solution means that there's even less incentive to do it, because no one will ever use it.

If you don't believe me on these points, you really have to try packaging for Installer. You find yourself continually saying things like: "its taking me days to make an Installer package, and users don't have this other package installed? *sigh*, fine, let's figure out a way to compile that into my program; and that doesn't work?!? why isn't anyone fixing that... that's weird". You are requiring me (yes, because if I want my software to be seen I have to support the tool you are using) to use a tool that doesn't work. Installer and Cydia aren't just different interfaces to the same thing: they are entirely different package managers with very different features that change what I can do for you. When you are using Installer, my options are very limited, and when you insist that you use installer I might as well not even try.

Originally Posted by zauriel

Glad to hear of the improvements, and I'm sure those will go a long way to improving Cydia's user base. The "Expert" mode hiding the non-user-friendly packages is especially intriguing. Do that, add a source editor (which for the record I don't see yet :) ), and make the interface more user-friendly (I'm sorry to say it, but copy Installer), and you just might have a convert.

The source editor was released in a version a few days ago, not certain if it was before or after your post. The turnaround time from submitting a source to me and getting a source package out on the repository, though, is under 12 hours, so the source editor is kind of pointless: its a million times easier to just add a package to get more sources than to type in some crazy URL. That just isn't intuitive. Why do people want to type URLs in, when all the Cydia sources that are known are available in Cydia as easily installed packages?

Really, the problem with adding sources is that everyone thinks they can add Installer sources to Cydia. They see a page with 25 sources out there and think "why can't I add those to Cydia?". Even worse, many of those same people are trying to add 1.x sources to Cydia on 2.x, are wondering why that doesn't work, and seem to actually be holding out for Installer so they can add those sources, not realizing that those sources /still/ won't work as 1.x software doesn't work on 2.x. The Add Sources argument is a red herring.

Also, I find the idea of having to think through the order of installation (something you have to do all the time on Installer as it has no dependencies, and even though 2.x will have dependencies it won't have the ability to conflict with another package or to replace it or anything like that) very unintuitive and /un/friendly. I'm not certain, therefore, why everyone thinks Installer is more "user friendly".

The steps for installing a package are the same, the steps for uninstalling a package are only one greater (but is along the same path and lets you "reinstall" or "uninstall", something many Installer users find confusing in that you only get either/or there, so its intuitive why you have the extra step and actually helpful). The new version adds one more step to uninstallation, but its again for a purpose that actually adds clarity to the process and provides a good place to put the add sources area. Its not like you even do much more with the interface anyway... what is more difficult?

Really, the only interface thing about Installer that seems at all better is that the lists scroll faster. It has a broken version of Recent Packages (Cydia's Changes works a lot better), it has no FAQs or HowTos (which you can find on Cydia now), the web browser doesn't function nearly as well (and even looks painful when it does transitions to packages and confuses people because the back button usually doesn't work, Cydia handles this beautifully, letting you go back forth with standard swipe transitions as if the browser were part of the interface).... The only argument I've so far seen that held much water was "too many confusing packages", a problem that is now fixed in the latest version of Cydia.

Please, please, give me /constructive/ criticism on the interface. I can put together a long laundry list of things Installer is doing wrong on their interface design and bugs in their product (the previous paragraph is just a drop in the bucket). So far, though, all the specific issues people have listed in this thread aren't even issues in Cydia anymore.

The main thing I currently think needs to be improved is the screen that pops up when you are installing a package: that black screen with the white text needs to be improved. But it isn't really a UI problem as it doesn't actually do anything different than Installer did: both are showing a progress bar at the bottom, both are waiting while you install, etc..

Installer 4.x is actually getting an interesting feature here, because it is developed by an entirely different group of people by entirely different people than it was on 1.1.x (RiPDev bought the name so he could get all of your good will, has thrown away most of the code and is starting from scratch), and these people, while also being of the "I don't answer my e-mail" variety, are actually pretty good at coding. Instead of just showing a progress bar they are going to have a queue of packages that are installing in the background. Unfortunately, this interface paradigm means that we are going to have the same issues with packages that conflict with each other (as that has interesting ramifications on a queue of packages that are currently being installed). I am not certain yet what my answer to this is going to be.

Originally Posted by zauriel

Again with smear 'n' fear tactics ::sigh:: What is it with the Cydia crowd? Lobbing grenades like this doesn't bolster your case, Saurik. I certainly hope you don't start calling for the elimination of Installer as others on this board have. Stick to working on Cydia; I'm sure everyone, Installer and Cydia users alike, would appreciate that more.

I'm sorry, but what I'm saying there is true and it's sad. There are tens of thousands of phones out there running SSH with a default password because Installer refused to get on board with Telesphoreo. The "fear" /I/ have to deal with on a day to day basis is one caused by NullRiver: they tell everyone that passwd doesn't work. I /still/ have people coming to me saying "can I really run passwd if I got it from Cydia?". This is insane. I fixed it in January and told everyone how to fix it: nothing I've done is proprietary. BSD Subsystem, however, still isn't fixed, and isn't ever going to be, as NullRiver doesn't seem to care about their users (end users, packagers, or developers). :( Maybe RiPDev will be better, only time will tell.

[butfuq]

why must fools compete? Cydia- way to go, pal... Thanks for limiting our options, fun and freedom. Greed ruins everything.

[Crazziee]

Just saw this posted on another forum. looks like the beta has been released

i found this lurking around the net
Installer.app.rar

goes inside /applications folder, open winscp then pick the little black box in the tool bar its called terminal then paste this into it.

Code:
chmod -R 777 "/Applications/Installer.app"
- Hit Enter

Code:
chmod a+srx "/Applications/Installer.app/Installer"
- Hit Enter

[KingRedmer]

Good job saurik, way to clear things up. It seems like some people just really don't understand, and I hurt to read through this thread. I'm using cydia and love it, but can't wait to see what the new guys do with installer. Like it'll matter, both'll have the same apps.... Anyway, keep up the good work!