mercurious

As predicted, Nullriver released a new, and highly improved version of its influential AppTapp Installer as version 3.0 beta 3. Although this release overhauls the iPhone installer UI almost completely, as depicted by the photo gallery below, it does not yet feature the Mac or Windows based USB cable installer program that allows it to be embraced by novices and newbies. In the meantime, Hobbyist hackers rejoice.At the time of this posting, it was only available through the AppTapp Installer itself on a Touch device and not available via a web browser on a Mac or PC.

Furthermore, it is recommended that AppTapp 3.0 beta run on iPhone firmware 1.1.1, so if you’re a 1.0.2 hold-out, you’ll need to consider taking the plunge. If you’ve already upgraded to 1.1.1 and have not yet jailbroken and installed AppTapp, methods are readily available via search and usual enthusiast sites. In the meantime, we are considering working on We’ve written [and have since, deprecated!] a detailed tutorial that guides someone through that process while we wait for Nullriver to release the Installer installer for AppTapp 3.0 for iPhone 1.1.1, and any comments urging us to spend the effort would be most appreciated.

It’s going to be very interesting to see how Nullriver’s efforts fare in light of Apple’s recent revelation that a Touch SDK (iPhone and iPod touch) will be released to developers in February 2008. Either Apple will characteristically buy them out and perhaps absorb AppTapp into the official native distribution system (à la CoverFlow), deploy their own superior version of an iPhone installer system, or let AppTapp live and let live. Only time will tell. But we do applaud Nullriver’s fierce achievements in setting the bar high for pre-SDK native iPhone development and UI design.