I'm an Electrical Engineer who writes software for a living and likes to play with iOS, Django, and high voltage. I know around 10 languages, 3 fluent, and (not the same) 3 spoken.
The iPhone OS SDK from Apple is wonderful, and being able to develop and debug on-device even without paying the entry tax is even more wonderful. To really take Jailbreak development to the next level, though – to develop Apps that don’t play nicely in Apple’s SDK playground – you are going to need the open tool chain. Here’s how to rock Xcode OTC style.
WARNING WARNING WARNING! Switching power supplies have many BACs (beefy-ass capacitors) that can hold lots of juice long after you’ve unplugged the unit. Do not crack one open like I did without knowing what you’re doing, it could seriously injure you or at least be really uncomfortable when you shock the crud out of yourself. I’m not responsible if you do just that, don’t say I didn’t warn you. I have a cable I made with a brush at the end that grounds everything it touches, I use it to brush the back of all power electronics before I work on them. You should too.
This is a pretty common one, but I like to add flair. I needed a bench power supply. Sadly, bench power supplies are very expensive, and I’m a poor college student. What I do have are computers. Lots of computers. In fact, I just brought to the recyclers about 100lbs of computer waste from machines that are too slow for even my standards. Luckily, one thing computers have going for them is very refined, VERY powerful power supplies.
A while back I wanted to monitor how much current my iPhone could draw under different conditions. I had seen a cable before where somebody brought it into a project box with a couple of screws on top exposing the two unshorted positive leads and the straight-through ground (such that you could measure both current through the cable or voltage across it), but I felt I could make things both smaller and more fully-featured.
UPDATE: NEWGUIDE NEWGUIDE NEWGUIDE!
Vital iPhone stats for this post:
iPhone version: 3G (should work with 2G and 3GS)
iPhone OS version: 3.0 (rock the hizzouse!)
Jailbreak status: Jailbroken using Pwnage Tool.
The Goal: Get live on-device XCode debugging without being a paying ADC member. This time OS 3.0 style.
UPDATE 7/11/09: Procedure working great: post here. Everyone’s getting antsy about on-device debugging with SDK…
Get them while they’re hot! http://www.iphone3g-mods.com/ (coral) has a great list of download links for…
Here’s a quick tip I picked up via the Stanford CS193P iPhone Programming (coral) course. Normally, to switch between device and simulator debugging requires going to the Project > Set Active SDK menu. Since I switch between said active SDKs almost every other build at points, the whole menu thing gets annoying. Luckily, it’s easy to put this drop-down menu in your toolbar in Xcode.