Cydia Packager Is What Installer Isn’t
by Eric March on March 1, 2008 at 7:53 pm
There’s a new sherrif Installer in town. Its name is Cydia, and it’s fixin’ to clean this place up and give the riff-raff the bum’s rush. Designed by Jay Freeman (a.k.a. Saurik), Cydia Packager is designed to be a complete and much better replacement for the standard Installer app. In the first place, Cydia’s main goal is to replace the aged and problematic BSD Subsystem with a newer, robust, open-source, and much more frequently updated core of Unix applications based on Debian’s APT distribution. This end of the project, known as Telesphoreo, ports APT to the iPhone and iPod Touch and modifies it to better integrate into this environment and work far better than BSD ever did. Further to the improvement of the core infrastructure, Cydia also intends to be a much better package manager, offering many features that Installer doesn’t. Here’s a brief rundown of some of its features:
- View packages alphabetically or categorically.
- An amalgamated Recent and Updated packages menu.
- Package search function.
- Status screen for package installation.
- Interrupted download resuming.
- Alpha-bar to quickly jump to a letter in the alphabetical list (as in the Music/iPod app).
- Faster source refreshing.
There’s only one wee little problem: There is currently no way to add sources, so this isn’t quite ready for prime-time just yet. It’s being worked on however, and from the look of things so far, it seems to be heading in a very interesting direction that may just render Installer obsolete.
The current build of Cydia Packager is available on Saurik’s own repository (http://apptapp.saurik.com) if you would like to check it out. For much more detailed information, have a look at Saurik’s website, as well as the Telesphoreo page. For some screenies, see below.
Screenshots (click to enlarge)
(Source: iPod Touch Fans)
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Posted in Application Related
March 1st, 2008 at 8:58 pm
Nice, i really like Cydia so far, i agree, Installer is very clunky to me.
Plus, for an even more update, 16:15 Tommorrow, Marathon Touch Beta 1 is released.
It will be available to download at my blog.
March 2nd, 2008 at 1:32 pm
Indeed, I’m very much looking forward to it. I sent you a response on your blog about a “press preview.” I’ve already got a release template done, I just need the to do the content, the screenies and a video.
March 13th, 2008 at 9:28 pm
yes I agree but u can’t uninstall it only reinstall it that’s stupid
March 21st, 2008 at 1:48 am
love cydia! Has a great set of tools for the real geeks. Will work great until June comes around. (currently typing on iPod touch)
April 22nd, 2008 at 7:19 pm
[...] Cydia? Basically, Cydia is the other Installer.app. We’ve talked about Cydia on Touch Podium, here. ZodTTD is pre-releasing it to all Cydia users because the Cydia developer helped him in providing [...]
August 14th, 2008 at 2:41 am
is cydia legal? I know apple has sum like agreement sayin 3rd party apps are illegal but is cydia legal?
September 11th, 2008 at 1:37 am
lol.. if you jail break isnt illegal.. lol… just dont want you to use.. so you only dl itunes applications..(just voids warranty)
September 11th, 2008 at 3:18 am
AaA is correct, jailbreaking is in no way illegal. Local authorities cannot press charges, or worse, send you to jail, if they see that you’ve got third party applications running on YOUR device.
September 11th, 2008 at 9:47 am
ok thx
October 7th, 2008 at 12:39 am
Hello,
I have a 1st gen. ipod. How can i get Cydia on my ipod? I dont know how to install it. Please help.
October 7th, 2008 at 2:24 am
What firmware version are you running? And is it jailbroken?
November 19th, 2008 at 12:09 pm
hello well i accidentally remove cydia and i done all the steps to download it. but the problem it posted unable to decode package more info to http://cydia,saurik.com/apptapp/ i done it for 10 times and its not working, if i restore my phone it might get lock. i have a version of 2.1 pls help me i need to delete some programs pls pls. thank u..
November 19th, 2008 at 12:16 pm
also the winterboard i cant remove it or uninstalled without cyndia so pls help me. i dont know why its not working thanks
December 31st, 2008 at 4:58 pm
i have a jailbroken ipod how do i get cydia on there?
January 5th, 2009 at 4:28 am
How about publishing apps in Cydia, is it legal? Can I have an app in Cydia and an app in the App Store?
January 5th, 2009 at 6:49 am
Yes, it is perfectly legal.
You can have an app on the App Store and Cydia.
January 7th, 2009 at 5:55 am
I’ve had this iPod for a while now and the only thing I really knew what do with it was connect WiFi but I’m trying to install Cydia because I hear so many great things about it but I’m having trouble downloadind it do I download it from my laptop or on my iPod touch.
Please help someone??? So confused.
January 7th, 2009 at 5:58 am
Ohh and another thing I have another iPod touch it’s not mine it’s a friends but she was asking me what to do if the WiFi icon is greyed out but I’ve never really come across that before and she asked if I could hopefully do something with it but I’m kinda lost.
Sorry for all my problems guys.
March 25th, 2009 at 9:05 am
it’s great! but somehow can’t install it tryin 2 find out how
April 17th, 2009 at 7:09 pm
Hey i have a non jailbroken ipod touch can i still download cydia or not ??
Thanks
May 29th, 2009 at 5:18 pm
Thats the same with me,
so i would appreciate if any1 could tell me if there was a place to get besides modmyi ( dosent work) quickpwn ( jailbreak) or quickfreedom ( jailbreak ) bye
I dont want to jailbreak and void warranty but i want cydia and the online download dosent work
June 18th, 2009 at 7:59 pm
Is it worth it
June 18th, 2009 at 11:48 pm
Whether it is worth it or not is up to you. What are you taking into consideration when you’re asking “worth”?
Time-wise? Sure, it doesn’t take long, and if you don’t like it, simply remove it.
Warranty-wise? Sure, simply remove it before sending it in to Apple if you have issues with your iPhone.
In the end, the choice is yours anyway.
August 7th, 2009 at 12:50 pm
I AM SCARED I GOT THE 3GS, AND I DONT KNOW IF IT IS SAFE TO USE CYDIA, IS IT?
August 23rd, 2009 at 10:40 am
will apps still work if I uninstall cydia?
June 6th, 2010 at 2:08 pm
I will like to get cydia in to my iPod tuch