Dive into OS X

The iphone-binutils team, led by Nightwatch, working on developing a toolchain for compiling apps for the iPhone has announced success at compiling a basic “hello world” application. This 3rd party application runs natively under the stripped-down version of OS X that ships on the iPhone.Though it’s just a rudimentary application, this is huge, because it now means pretty much all the pieces are in place to develop and install 3rd party genuine, binary applications that run on the iPhone (and don’t originate from Apple).

The iphone-binutils team is led by Patrick Walton (aka Nightwatch) who was also responsible for one of the earlier milestones in attempts to hack the iPhone. This most recent accomplishment puts this particular team approximately 2/3 of the way to a fully unlocked iPhone, according to their list of required goals.

For those who are interested in giving “Hello World” a shot, there are instructions available. We recommend only experienced users give this a shot. Otherwise, you risk bracking your iPhone simply for the thrill of a Hello World application.