The iPod touch, Apple's (Nasdaq: AAPL) 
latest media gadget, has been on store shelves for less than a month. However, a hacker barely in his teens has claimed he's already cooked up a code called "iJailbreak" that will allow touch users to load their devices with third-party applications 
. As an added bonus, the program apparently does its job for anyone interested in freeing their media player from Apple's solitary confinement, not just for the technologically advanced.
Available at iJailBreak.com, the program is also posted on Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) Code. According to the claimed 13-year-old creator, know as "AriX," iJailBreak is an automated application that only requires users to restart their iPod touch. Currently, the software only works on Intel-based Mac computers running OS X Tiger.
iJailbreak is not the first application on the Web designed to free the touch. However, previous versions for the Mac, based on feedback from those who have tried them, have not been designed for novices or the faint at heart.
Strike Two?
The iJailBreak release comes a little more than two weeks after some iPhone owners who had installed software that cut the ties binding it to AT&T (NYSE: T) discovered that the latest firmware update from Apple had turned their precious phones into hunks of useless plastic.
The issue is that the iPhone does what it does very well, but Apple has limited third-party apps to Web applications that are available on the phone, Josh Martin, a Yankee Group analyst, told MacNewsWorld.
"There's a market out there for people who want to hack their phone and get some other third-party applications," he explained.
While competitors like Nokia (NYSE: NOK) and Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) have welcomed the development of third-party software on their mobile platforms, Apple's refusal to do so thus far is in keeping with the company's history, Martin pointed out.
"To make the phone easier to use, Apple has chosen to limit to some extent the usability of the phone," Martin said. "It is par for the course for Apple. They haven't opened up their DRM (digital rights management) system to anybody else to allow for third-party development of hardware. They haven't opened up iTunes for anyone else.
"This is exactly what Apple does. They have a long history of developing things on their own and allowing people to some extent to get involved, but they're concerned about exactly what happened [with the iPhone]," he continued.
However, Martin acknowledged that it is not at all surprising that people hack the iPhones and would want additional applications. If that is the yin, then the yang is that they will have to deal with the consequences of that decision.
Welcome Independent Developers
If Apple were to welcome third-party developers with open arms, the company runs the risk creating a situation in which device owners download new programs with impunity to add functionality only to have those programs interact poorly with updates created by Apple engineers, said Martin.
"What happens if something doesn't play nice with the phone anymore?" he posed. "Then all of a sudden an unsupported third-party application has broken the phone."
There are two factors at work here, Martin explained. One is Apple ensuring the integrity of the phone throughout the lifecycle. The second deals with its partner for the iPhone, AT&T.
"AT&T has to be involved in the thought process because there are some limitations when you're running over EDGE. You don't necessarily want to make a Sling player for the iPhone available until AT&T assures you the network can carry the load."
More to the Touch
For the touch, owners may want to add games or greater capabilities to the Notes and Calender functions. "It could be pretty much anything," Martin said.
While there is a clear desire in the market for tools that allow devices to work in more ways than originally intended, the user must always keep in mind a fairly large caveat.
"At the end of the day, once you hack the device you have to realize there is the potential for things going awry," Martin added.
Touch users may not have the same problem as iPhone users unless they hack something on the media player dealing with DRM -- then Martin advised they need to be concerned.
"It's not a phone, so there may be less concern about what is done to it," he concluded. "If Apple discovers there is a hack they may not go out of their way to eliminate, but I could see them trying to eliminate it also. It just depends on what [the hack] is."
None of the hacks are going to be as problematic for the touch as those for
the iPhone were, Michael McGuire, a Gartner (NYSE: IT) analyst, told MacNewsWorld,
adding that what Apple really needs to focus on is consumer expectations.
"One of the big challenges for Apple is to figure out how to manage
expectations," he explained. "They're pointing everybody at the Web 2.0-style
browser-based apps rather than apps that run natively on the device. [I'm]
not sure they would want to turn the iTouches into bricks."
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