iPhone Hacks: Running out of Application space on your iPhone or touch?
Both the iPhone and the iPod touch include relatively limited space on the OS partition (the part of your iPhone's memory that stores the operating system and associated files). It's where Apple, by default, adds its factory-installed Applications but you can save space by installing your Apps on the Media partition instead (that's the part of your your touch or phone that contains your iTunes musics and videos). Here's how: Your iPhone or iPod touch knows about a folder called "/Widgets". Any Application installed into /Widgets gets recognized and loaded into SpringBoard, just like any app in /Applications. You can fool your iPod or iPhone into thinking you've added a Widgets folder by creating a symbolic link between your media partition and /Widgets.
To do this, you create a folder in your root directory called Applications, or more specifically, /var/root/Applications. You can then add a "symbolic link", a kind of alias, that connects /Widgets with /var/root/Applications. If you install my Erica Utilities and the BSD subsystem, you can create and remove this link by running my xwidg utility.
At this time this is a command-line only operation, however, if you have ssh installed on your system and connect from your computer, just issue the following command: ~/bin/xwidg. The utility looks for an existing symbolic link. If it finds one it removes it, if it does not it creates it. So running xwidg repeatedly just toggles the connection on and off. After each update, it restarts SpringBoard so it reflects the updated link.
The downside is some Applications use absolute paths in their code: Labyrinth and Crossy are two prime examples (They should be using NSBundle calls but that's a completely different matter). Most Applications will run as happily in /Widgets via /var/root/Applications as they will in /Applications and you will save yourself a lot of OS partition space.
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Both the iPhone and the iPod touch include relatively limited space on the OS partition (the part of your iPhone's memory that stores the...
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So I used the utility and it works really well with a few exceptions that some have mentioned before. First, there are a choice few apps that will not live outside of the default Applications folder and will crash if you try and run them from the linked folder.
Second, Customize doesn't read the new folder so you can't organize those apps that you have moved.
Also, Installer can't uninstall the apps because it doesn't know where they are so it just removes the information from Installer, rather than removing the application.
Are these community wide problems that need to be addressed or is there a better solution that will work across the board?
Also, du didn't work, got a command not found. Any other suggestions on how we can check free space. I would love to see something like iStat Pro (Mac OS X widget) in the form of an IpT/Iphone app.
Finally found the "du" for iphone at:
http://wickedpsyched.com/iphone/unixtools
Note, it kinda assumes you're unix-savvy.
Jailbreak and Unlock 1.1.2 iPhones..
http://planet-iphones.com
Can this be done using a pc? if so, how?
December 17 2007 at 11:57 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyAnd I spelled Erica wrong. Kill me.
December 12 2007 at 11:25 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyHi Erika,
No commentary, nothing technical. Just a serious thanks for all you've done to make my iPhone less boring. I've been a bouncer for 25 tears which mainly involves long periods of boredom punctuated by sporadic insanity. My iPhone now gets me through the dismal times. You are appreciated.
Thanks again,
Steve D
no luck lindsey, unfortunately the iphone kernel mount does not support the --bind option, i wonder why though, is it like that on any mac? i don't want to symlink stuff on the iPhone though, no thanks it is just too much of a quick and dirty hack. 300mb is enough for the apps that anyone should NEED anyways so far. Myself, i just uninstalled a few things that i had installed just to have them in case i ever needed them..
if you want more space just to install NES/GBA roms you can symlink those, or any dictionaries you want, but there is no reason to create symlinks to critical apps.. that's the way i see it at least
Great hack! It works perfectly... I just had to copy the apps in the /private/var/root/Applications, ls -fs them and no more space problems!
December 07 2007 at 9:24 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Replyhow do i go to the ipod touchs path, so i can enter this terminal command? PLZ provide a step-by-step instruction including the way how you get to the folder where the command has to be used, for newbees :/
December 04 2007 at 6:23 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Replyif mount --bind is supported, why not create a directory in Media and mount --bind it to the apps dir, then even apps with absolute paths will work.. im not familiar with osx and i got my iphone just a few days and haven't tried it, but it should work way better than a symlink, you just have to add the command in fstab too
November 27 2007 at 5:34 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyDimitris - Any luck with your idea? This hack worked for me for about 2 weeks. Now every time I link, the swirling icon just goes endlessly. Thanks
December 08 2007 at 1:39 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Replyi installed the utilities already, but they are no app of itself on the ipod touch, so i guess its terminal stuff. just wanted to add that
November 27 2007 at 10:53 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyHot Apps on TUAW
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