Cre.ations.net's Nate True wrote a blog post describing what he found inside the iPhone firmware 1.1.3 update. Whilst digging around in the iPhone's firmware innards, he found that Apple has made some startling changes to the iPhone's OS, including:

• The SpringBoard doesn't have to be modified to show custom Applications installed on the iPhone
  
• Applications no longer run as root, instead they run as 'mobile'
• Preferences are no longer stored in /var/root
  

True states additionally that he has also found what appears to be widget support in the SpringBoard.app. 'SBWidgetApplication' manages package locations and icons. So, what does this all mean? It might mean that the stars are aligning so properly that this might be the release: the one that makes it possible for 3rd party developers.

What is Make My Day? It's a free interactive video choose-your-adventure for iPhone. If that sounds like an awfully complex way to describe a game, well, it's hard to describe it any other way. Make My Day offers a story where you make decisions at critical points. The program works by contacting a central media server and playing segments of your story. Your choices drive which video segments you watch.

You start off the game by waking up. Soon, the program prompts you whether to answer a phone or to open a door. From there the branch points just get more and more bizarre. It's a delightful game put together by a cadre of college buddies and offers far more entertainment than a free program ought. Your choices range from hilariously unforeseen to seriously amusing. Case in point: the bits about being struck by lightning and the "dance off" with your mugger.

Download your copy via Installer.app. The iPhone adaptation was put together by Nate True, the same guy who brought you the fabulous "Tap Tap Revolution" and who engineered the special effects for the project. He was responsible for the "lightsaber" bit. When you see it, you'll know what I mean. Make My Day is actually the first iPhone app I know of to employ live streaming video.

If you find yourself replaying parts over and over and want to own a copy, you can buy a DVD version from the Make My Day website for $16.

Things go fast in the iPhone world. Yesterday, I posted about Nate True's scrolling dock application. Today brings an entirely new generation of Dock. Dock 2.0 introduces a sunshine-bright hot spot on your iPhone's lower right corner. Drag out from there and the iPhone presents you with a curved selection arc. Move your finger along the arc to choose an application to open. The currently selected application echos just below the arc so you know which item you're selecting. It's a lot easier to use than it sounds and feels a lot like picking a name in the address book using the A-Z slide control.

And now the downside. The iPhone has little tolerance for running more than one non-Springboard application at a time. (For whatever reason, it refers to these applications as UnknownPurpleApps.) When more than one purple app attempt to launch, they conflict and the new app will not run. So what does this mean? When using Dock 2.0, you cannot use my screen shot utility or many other command-line apps.

You can easily enable and disable Dock 2.0 by using my launchctl GUI. Select com.natetrue.dock and choose unload -w to toggle it off or load -w to switch it back on.

The iPhone home screen doesn't scroll. This 16-application limit is just a reality most users have come to accept. Third party developers have turned to launcher apps that search for additional applications and let you choose one from a list. Today, Nate True introduced an iPhone mod that smashes these launchers into yesterday's news.

True's Dock package loads your entire application collection into a single usable list that appears directly on your homescreen. Just use a finger to scroll the bottom row of icons left or right and tap the application you want to launch.

This is still a relatively early release--so there are a few bugs here or there--but I've tested it out and it works fabulously. To install, download a copy of iBrickr (Windows) or Breezy (Macintosh Universal Binary) and use them to load the Dock package to your iPhone.