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iPhone's First Native P2P Torrent App is Up and Running
Posted by Haroon Malik at 11:40 AM on March 3, 2008
Core, an iPhone Hacker with mad hacking skills, has managed to port to the iPhone a functioning P2P client based on Transmission, which is a popular torrent app for Macs. This is the first time P2P torrent software has run natively on the iPhone, and the prospect has us in tizzy fits of excitement.
Tests have been carried out, and they have worked a charm. However, before you guys go nuts about downloading completely legal torrent files, there are some things you should know:
• This is a command line client at present, and although someone will chuck a GUI on it in the near future, steer clear unless you can handle messing with terminal.
• EDGE and P2P will screw your shit up. If you plan to get your download on, it's WiFi all the way.
• If you start a download immediately before having sex, your iPhone's battery will be dead before you are finished; i.e. torrenting will drain your battery extremely rapidly.
• You won't see this up in installer.app, hit through on the link for further instructions.
All that aside, this is a neat development and bodes well for the post-SDK era. If anyone does give this one a go, let us know how you get on. [Wickedpsyched via TUAW]
Comments (AU Comments · US Comments)
There are currently no AU comments for this post.
swarmster
Posted 1:01 PM 3/3/08
I've been increasingly thinking lately about how much I'd love to have a little box that I can plug a single power cable into, stick in the corner, and access (preferably via a Bonjour app on any computer on the network) to give it torrent files to download. And it would just sit there, wirelessly downloading them to some internal storage. And then I'd copy them over to my computer after.
Then I could free up CPU resources and hard drive space on my computer, and not have to leave my whole computer on overnight just to deal with torrents. It would be so easy, convenient, and efficient. Why hasn't it been done yet?
Get this running on an iPod Touch and you have a total overkill solution (well, without the luxury wireless torrent setup) for $300. For some reason that's the best we have right now, so no need in bashing it.
swarmster
mcsurfer3393
Posted 1:01 PM 3/3/08
@jaydot: Whats the point of anything? I guage everything in life on what I like to call a "Binary Awesomeness Scale". It works like this: I download some shit on my iphone, or I play doom on my watch, or I stream a movie in HD from my penis to my toilet... and then I either say "that was fucking awesome" or I don't. Capiche?
Gizmodo = 1.
mcsurfer3393
strider_mt2k
Posted 1:01 PM 3/3/08
MAJOR DEVELOPMENT!
(four pages of provisos to follow)
Still I have to admit, it's impressive.
strider_mt2k
tamoko
Posted 1:01 PM 3/3/08
@jaydot: Nothing more then proving you can...
tamoko
jaydot
Posted 1:01 PM 3/3/08
sorry but what the hell is the point of this?
jaydot
tamoko
Posted 1:01 PM 3/3/08
Props to the Core...
@scott-e: Lets hope it does.
tamoko
scott-e
Posted 1:01 PM 3/3/08
does it work on the itouch??
scott-e
qbrad
Posted 1:01 PM 3/3/08
Awesome!!! Torrents on a spotty WiFi connection to a tiny screen. Will it do Blu rips?
qbrad
iceicemaybe
Posted 2:41 PM 3/3/08
@swarmster: Reading that was pretty much orgasmic.
iceicemaybe
discounteggroll
Posted 2:41 PM 3/3/08
meet his children "dual", "quad" and "^n"
discounteggroll
TonyTriple
Posted 3:44 PM 3/3/08
aaaand here comes the DCMA...and firmware update..and..oops, now its down.
/future>
Please remove your device from ATT's grip! I want one!
TonyTriple
Arsenal6
Posted 6:22 PM 3/3/08
congrats on the breakthrough but sadly it stupid and pointless
Arsenal6
GameJerk
Posted 7:30 PM 3/3/08
I'd like to dload Ipod videos straight to the phone w/o having to worry about transferring em over.
GameJerk
Sleeper_Service
Posted 9:46 PM 3/3/08
It's nice in theory but not that great in practice - I have SymTorrent and Symella on my N95 and although it works well it rapes the battery.
If you have mains power then fine, otherwise nothing more than a novelty.
Sleeper_Service
erikislame
Posted 9:46 PM 3/3/08
is this a first on a mobile handset to date, or do WinMo/Symbian/RIM handsets have an app for this already?
erikislame
undeadmachine
Posted 10:48 PM 3/3/08
@swarmster: i deal with tiny systems like this for work. you should look into them, some of them are more than powerful enough to sit in the corner (or even inside your 'real' pc) leeching torrents, serving media etc.
[www.via.com.tw]
[www.acrosser.com]
undeadmachine
dragonphyre
Posted 12:49 AM 4/3/08
/me wonders if there will ever be a true 'peer to peer' network using ADHOC to broadcast data between devices rather than through a network.
dragonphyre
firesign
Posted 3:17 AM 4/3/08
@swarmster: eee pc 4g surf + external usb hd. closer to $400 but more than enough to get the job done.
firesign
holyOrange
Posted 3:17 AM 4/3/08
@swarmster: there are available torrent boxes (don't know what they are called) already. just load torrent files in it and it goes download silently while you do your groceries.
holyOrange
togaiphone
Posted 9:01 AM 8/3/08
f you have any questions about the iphone, many of your answers can be found here: [www.iphonedownloadworld.com]
I wasn't sure if I wanted one, but I read a few of these articles and I really wanted one. They also have a link to get a free iphone for signing up.
togaiphone
iFlingPoo
Posted 9:01 AM 8/3/08
I would think it would work on the iPod Touch. I wonder how fast, compared to a comp, the iPhone would torrent all those completely legal documents and applications *movies*cough*
iFlingPoo