Cracking the CoverFlow code

Innovation in the iPhone development community is progressing at an aggressive pace despite the continued lack of an official software development kit (SDK) from Apple (which, by all accounts, is still due this month). The latest breakthrough comes from Kevin Brosius, who has figured out how to use Apple's slick CoverFlow technology (used to browse albums in the iPhone's iPod function) in other applications.

Kevin writes:

"You can display a number of images (look at the setImage: calls.) At the moment this just displays four fixed images supplied with the demo."

Immediately after Kevin's discovery, another developer, Layton Duncan, posted an example application that scans the applications directory and loads the icons into CoverFlow.

In order to make use of the examples linked above, you need a jailbroken iPhone with SSH capabilities. See our guide for instructions on getting there.

Underground developers have created an unofficial SDK, including a complete guide to iPhone development that integrates Apple?s XCode, an integrated development environment for Mac OS X. Instructions for setting up a staging area, creating a mountable iPhone filesystem, installing the iPhone toolchain, and finally setting up XCode with a custom iPhone application template are all included. And Jonathan Zdziarski, one of the most noted underground iPhone developers who has been instrumental in developing numerous jailbreak methods, recently released a book through O?Reilly Publishing dubbed "iPhone Open Application Development" that explains in how to create iPhone applications using Objective-C and the iPhone API.

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