Filed under: iPod Family, iPhone
iPhone gets native P2P torrent software
Your iPhone plays audio. Your iPhone plays video. Until now, you had to sync those suckers. Today, the insanely brilliant iPhone Hacker core announced a preliminary version of a Transmission Peer-to-Peer client for iPhone. The code is ported from the Transmission site to run on the iPhone's ARM microprocessor. Tests on downloaded files produced the identical MD5 checksum as downloading via wget.
Now before you start torrenting, there are some important matters you need to know. First: P2P + EDGE do not mix. Let me repeat that for emphasis. They DO. NOT. MIX. That's because EDGE + P2P takes down EDGE faster than toppling a Jenga pile. Update Further testing has gotten 5kb/s over EDGE without crashing but it's an iffy proposition. Use with care.
Second, we are posting this because there are many *legal* torrents, including music and video, available for download. So please don't start getting into a "Torrent Good"/"Torrent Bad" flamewar in the comments.
Third, this is EXTREMELY preliminary software. It will develop over time -- so you probably don't want to grab a copy and start torrenting right away until it becomes more stable.
Fourth, this is a command-line client. As it matures, someone is going to slap a GUI on that baby but at this time, do not look for the software to show up in Installer.app or Cydia.
Finally, be aware that torrenting will wear down your battery faster than, um... toppling a Jenga pile. (C'mon folks. We're really short on family-friendly metaphors here. Suggest your own in the comments.)
Way to go core!
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Mario Burkhardt said 5:44PM on 3-02-2008
torrents good
also first
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Jon Brown said 6:10PM on 3-02-2008
While I see this app as cool from a proof of concept POV, I have to wonder why? When and what would it ever be practical to torrent to/from an iPhone? Anything I can think putting on an iPhone would be infinitly easier to do via direct up/download (ftp/whatever) or to put on a computer first and then send to/from an iPhone.
Further since I'm in a ranting kind of mood and figure the previous commenters have all shown they don't value comments and won't actually read the comments I have to say...
Commenter 1 said... nothing unless someone is keeping score for first posts and awarding prizes in which case WAY to GO, YOU ROCK!
Commenter 2 asked two questions BOTH of which where clearly answered and link to in the post
Commenter 3 points commenter 2 to the article, as if Commenter 2 who failed to read the article the first time might read comment 3 and then go back and read the article...
Could we please not devolve comments into useless wastes of time and space like "torrents good. also first". If you have nothing to say... don't... really invest that time reading something else... writing something someone, ANYONE, might find insightful or useful. If you want to tag, get a can of spray paint and go outside there are plenty of blank walls awaiting you.
mentalsticks said 7:21PM on 3-02-2008
@Jon Brown:
wow... you ARE ranting
Mario Burkhardt said 8:02PM on 3-02-2008
Or I could just say what I want and you can choose to disregard it or not
Joid said 5:45PM on 3-02-2008
This is awesome!
Now i have some questions.
1. Does this work well with EDGE?
2. Where can I download this piece of app?
Oh, and Torrents rock like broken stones!
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john Jensen said 5:51PM on 3-02-2008
So cool, i can't believe it, oh and Joid read the text, does not play well with EDGE
"hey DO. NOT. MIX. That's because EDGE + P2P takes down EDGE faster than toppling a Jenga pile."
Dan Woods said 5:52PM on 3-02-2008
Did you even read the summary?
Doesn't work very well on EDGE at all.
And your broken stones metaphor is worse than the Jenga Pile Metaphor. :)
Joid said 3:15AM on 3-03-2008
OMFG, so hilarious, yet so sad
jigme said 5:51PM on 3-02-2008
yup, torrents good. but they'll bring down EDGE faster than an Apple C&D order...
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jigme said 5:55PM on 3-02-2008
...and wear down your battery faster than the inbuilt 3G and GPS. oh, wait...
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Alan said 6:11PM on 3-02-2008
Uh, another unneeded app for the iPhone. Who's using P2P sharing apps on their mobile phone out there?
Don't get me wrong, I have an iPhone and I love it, I'm realy grateful to developers for their effort, but the majority of applications are ugly, bloated with animations and with no real usefulness. And any iPhone user here with a bit of coherence will agree with me.
Oh wait, but there is Customize! And thos billion themes! Look at those, aren't them AMAZING? .......
If you ask me, some really nice apps are Taskbar notifier, iMap Idle, MobileScrobbler, Converter, MobileChat (though you can only login one account at a time), iSolitaire.
Some so so: Apollo IM, SMSd, Siphon, Touchpad, VNSea
Some bad ones: MobileRSS, iNewsGroup
Ok, enough with rants..
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Esson said 5:53PM on 3-11-2008
At least you ask, you could have made a fool out of yourself by asking with a sarcastic tone. ;) But... Anyways:
No one is using P2P on their cell phones "out here".
That's it! No one. So, where are you getting with this? How many people watch Family Guy on their cell phone? You ask a rethoric question like it is a smart question while it actually is quite inane. Of course no on is using their cell phone to do something that can't be done on a cell phone. Nowadays you can watch Family Guy on a cell phone, so people do that. (Legal or otherwise.) People will also start downloading stuff with P2P clients once they are available on cell phones - which is just about... now!
Why wouldn't download stuff directly to my phone? If I download to my PC/Mac first, then I need to go through the trouble of syncing it with my iPhone. Moreover, I'm not always at home. Home isn't the only place with Wi-Fi. At work, I am now able to download things to my iPhone. (No, this wasn't possible before since Apple decided that "syncing" means "write stuff over" and not "merge information from two or more sources".)
Ok, I'm good. Thank you for being the one who stupified me just a little bit more today. It had to be someone.
eric said 6:09PM on 3-02-2008
Well, the verbal warning telling people not to use this on EDGE should certainly suffice to dissuade those who already followed all specific directions and TOS usage for the Iphone already. Brings down Edge you say? Why should anyone be concerned about that.
The last thing I want is some self important idiot messing with the network I pay for access to too. Great "service" making this available.
Seriously, file this one in that brief "moment of clarity" that you had about security a couple weeks ago. Just because something can be done doesn't mean that it should.
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starkruzr said 6:55PM on 3-02-2008
You're an idiot.
The article is talking about the fact that trying to use BT over EDGE brings down *YOUR* EDGE, not "all EDGE everywhere."
While you're at it, explain how TOS affect whether or not I'm "allowed" to jailbreak *my* iPhone or unlock *my* iPhone?
Take your corporate shilling elsewhere.
Michael Long said 7:03PM on 3-02-2008
The article didn't say YOUR EDGE, it said EDGE, which means that any idiot using such a thing could screw up network transmission/reception for everyone else within the same cell.
Take your "my rights trump everyone else's" shilling elsewhere. ;)
Jon Brown said 7:33PM on 3-02-2008
Sorry to be harsh, but you'd have to be incredibly naive to interpret "takes down EDGE" in this article as meaning "taking down [the entire AT&T] EDGE [network]" rather than "taking down [your] EDGE [connection]".
Somebody drank Steve Job's koolaide and beleived that whole "Cingular doesn’t want to see their West Coast network go down because some application messed up" statement was realistic.
eric said 7:45PM on 3-02-2008
No I don't have to be naive, drink koolaid, or any other insult you all choose to come up with.
The way the article is written it's not specific what the scope is. Thing is, none of you have any idea of the impact of this any more than I do.
I'd prefer to err on the side of caution, rather than take the word of some (although I'm sure talented) random hacker who breaks into a system closed by design, and writes an app for it, and relies on the fact that people are simply told "Hey, don't use this on EDGE" to prevent it from f-ing things up.
I could care less if people want to mess with their own devices, but don't mess with mine, and don't mess with my data pipe.
Dan Davies said 6:26PM on 3-02-2008
Now what would be awesome would be if that App could talk to either Transmission or use the Clutch page from your Mac at home; so you could add torrents/track existing ones from your phone without having to phaff around trying to find the Clutch URL/running two apps.
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Billy Borg said 7:01PM on 3-02-2008
I agree. Who would want to download torrents to the iPhone? The iPhone should be used as a manager/monitor. Transmission/Clutch is a great solution but the page it serves could be made to be more iPhone compatible. A client is a great solution as you said as well.
Collin said 6:53PM on 3-02-2008
Lame. P2P and the iPhone is all about the remote control, not running the client on the phone. Set it up remote, then put it to sleep in your pocket and check back later to see how for your transfers are on the machine with the real bandwidth.
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