Soulseek, which was creted by former Napster programmer Nir Arbel and visibly resembles early versions of Napster, is not one of the most popular filesharing apps. It doesn’t have the mainstream appeal of Kazaa or Limewire, nor does it garner the press attention of BitTorrent. And that’s all probably fine with its users, who tend to gravitate toward more independent musical fare. But Soulseek has done something the others haven’t — made the jump to the iPhone.
Developer Errrick created iSlsk, a new filesharing client for jailbroken iPhones that works with the Soulseek network, by basing it on open source versions of the client for the Mac. “I saw all the capabilities this little gadget had and then thought ‘why didn’t someone already do something like this?'” he told TorrentFreak.
iSlsk lets iPhone users search for and download files directly on their phone. The software also imports downloaded files to the iPod music database so that they can be played with native iPhone controls.
This is not an application you’ll ever see in the upcoming official iPhone application database. Apple certainly won’t let applications that a) potentially facilitate illegal file sharing and b) cut into their iTunes Store revenue into their official app distribution channels. If iSlsk and other music and video sharing applications catch on, will we continue to see jailbroken iPods even after the release of the official app store? Even if Apple starts selling phones that aren’t tied to AT&T?
A video of the of the app in action is below:
