If you’ve been looking for a reason to jailbreak your iPhone, look no further. Yesterday, iPhone developer Alec Renolds announced on multipleonline forums that his long-awaited BitTorrent-powered application called “appDowner” is about to be released. When he first announced this project last year, the idea was to create a simple BitTorrent client for the iPhone. Unfortunately, personal issues got in the way of development and the project was put on hold for months on end.
But now, Renolds has returned and this time he’s expanded on the original concept to create what appears to be a full-on App Store replacement application.
The new appDowner application may use BitTorrent technology to power its downloads in the background, but the interface doesn’t appear to be technically complicated to use at all. Instead, the app keeps the iPhone’s design aesthetic in mind to provide a simple, streamlined interface with just three buttons: active, finished, and store.
It’s that last one, “Store,” where all the shopping will take place. And unlike the official App Store, nothing is rejected. That’s right – there’s no approval process whatsoever and all apps will be added to the store within one week. The only exception to this rule will be releases not made free by their developers, says Alec. That means that appDowner isn’t about to become a resource for sharing cracked copies of games that you would otherwise have to pay for.
But even without the illegal goods (a rule we’re happy to support), appDowner has a lot of potential to compete with the other popular repositories/stores for jailbroken apps like Cydia and Icy. Because it uses BitTorrent technology, apps will always be available for download with no need for developers to worry about hosting issues. In addition, the technology will be able to be used for more than downloading just apps alone, if you’re so inclined.
To kick start the launch, appDowner will include several popular apps like Steven Troughton-Smith’s killer Stack application and Lights Off game. They’ll even have some exclusive content from Nullriver, Inc., promises designer Miles Lorry, who teamed up with Renolds to work on the app.
No word yet on an exact release date, only that it will be arriving “very, very soon.”
Stack for iPhone
