Apple iPhone isn't exactly the best kept secret in the world. The odds are it's either on your Christmas wish list or you may as well already have it. Love it or hate it, the iPhone has set the bar pretty high in terms of interface and user-friendliness and, almost six months after its launch now, the competition has not yet managed to fight back with a product likely to generate the same buzz.

Now, don't get us wrong, the iPhone is not the perfect gadget. It has its flaws and most of them stem from the tendency of the people at Apple to oversimplify things. Plus, they have taken good care that the only way to upload or download content to and from your iPhone is via iTunes. It's an expression of their closed-ecosystem product portfolio - if you want their hardware, you must use their software. Our hopes for a 3G-enabled Euro-iPhone went down the drain; the 2-megapixel camera has not changed either; official third-party application support will not be available before February 2008 and, finally, on the Old Continent the device will cost 1.4 times more (with the current exchange rate) than back in US. Why all the fuss then, you might ask. Actually, to get a feel of that, you must have held the handset in your hand and tried it for real. It's nothing like anything you've seen. Touch sensitive screens are nothing new, but Apple have created a unique user interface that reacts to your touch in an almost physical way.

Now that the air is thick with jailbreaking and unlocking, seems like the right time to step back from what iPhone is and look at what it could be. We know there's enough of you who don't like spending hours reading stuff on the Internet just to enhance their phones. So we are looking at some applications that take the capabilities of the device to another level.

We do not endorse jailbreaking or unlocking your iPhone and we are certainly not encouraging you to take any of these actions. But if you're interested in what your gadget is capable of, we take a look at the fun world of modding the iPhone. So it's up to you whether you take the blue pill or the red pill. Stay tuned, we're back after the jump.

Looks like the red pill went down well, now back to our game. It seems jailbreaking the original firmware version of the iPhone (1.0.0, later updated to 1.0.2) was not that much of a problem. Jailbreaking is the action that gives you access to the iPhone file system. As you will see, having your iPhone jailbroken swings the door wide open to a world of options, even if you don't intend to unlock and prefer to stick with what AT&T has to offer (O2 and T-Mobile too, starting today). Getting in or jailbreaking serves the double purpose of allowing you to install third-party applications and getting your iPhone unlocked should you choose to do so. Once the original firmware was jailbroken native third-party applications started sprouting like mushrooms in rain.

However, with the major 1.1.1 firmware update all that went to the dogs. And, like in a game of cat and mouse, crackers and coders started searching again for the Holy Grail of Jailbreaking the "Jesus phone" (sorry for the Biblical approach). Apple added fuel to the fire by announcing that jailbroken iPhones are no longer subject to their limited warranty service.

However, it was only a matter of time for a new jailbreak to surface and allow firmware 1.1.1 iPhone owners to take a bite at the third-party application scene. Virginizing software was also made available, so firmware 1.0.2 users who have been tinkering with their iPhones could restore them to their original state and get the 1.1.1 update or keep their warranty if they please.

Things are now pretty much back to normal and the third-party application scene is again bristling with new ideas and solutions for making your iPhone a happier puppy. Today, November 9, the Euro iPhone will start selling and word is out that it would flaunt the spanking new 1.1.2 firmware version. It will supposedly be jailbreak resistant, so early buyers of the EuroPhone will probably have to wait a little before they unleash the true powers of their new mobiles. However word is out that some developers out there have already hacked the 1.1.2 firmware of the iPod Touch, so a jailbreaking solution for the EuroiPhones is probbaly just around the corner.

Getting back to the basics, three things need to be done before new software can be installed on the iPhone. First is the jailbreak (that's not unlocking) and installation of the AppTapp (Installer) software. It's a software manager that allows users to install or uninstall software. It contains a catalog of applications from a default source (website) and supports adding additional sources (websites) of even more available programs. So that's about it and it's really that simple. The last thing to do is install an application that patches the Home screen (better known as Springboard) of the iPhone, so it can accommodate more slots for icons - those are needed for the new applications.

A crew of developers has created the AppSnapp application (not to be confused with AppTapp Installer) that does all those three things en bloc. And right before you ask, no, it doesn't unlock your iPhone. For that purpose the AnySIM 1.1 software is used right afterwards, but that's out of the scope of this article.

You can read more information on the actual process of applying the AppSnapp magic with simple instructions over here. The process is more than simplified and it takes no more than 10 minutes before you are up and running. At the time of writing this article, news broke that more than 100 000 iPhones have been jailbroken using this routine. And it was made available only a couple of weeks ago. Bear in mind that all that applies to the 1.1.1 firmware.

Probably the best place to start exploring a free iPhone is the AppTapp application with the available programs. It appears as a blue icon dubbed Installer on the Springboard. The default source of applications is limited however, so installing the Community sources available in the Installer is another option. There are several other sources available that can be added manually - just google around for ones that other people trust.

If you do have an unlimited data plan with your carrier, please skip the following paragraph. For the less lucky, probably the first application worth adding is Services. It allows you to switch off the EDGE functionality so you don't accidentally pay for some pricey megabytes - the iPhone has no habit of asking before downloading something.

Now, one thing the original iPhone won't do for you is change wallpapers under the springboard icons. Their background is always black. The Summerboard application sorts that out. Themes can even be applied to the springboard icons. How cool is that?

What if more icons could be fitted in the springboard dock (the lowest row of icons)? Well, the xLaunch application does just that. The current example includes the icon of the Search application - a real goodie. It enables letter-by-letter searching in your contact list - a feature that misses in the iPhone phonebook, even though it's available when creating a new message and filling in your "To:" line.

Another thing that the iPhone can't do right-out-of-the-box is deleting individual Call records and individual SMS balloons. You only have the option of clearing all of your call logs and you can only delete an entire conversation with a certain person. The CallID application comes to the rescue with call records, while the SMSD application helps delete individual SMS balloons that are no longer needed.

Should you miss a regular file browser for the stuff stored on the iPhone (system stuff, too) the Finder application is available. It allows users to Delete, Copy, Move and Create files and folders, permissions on those can also be set. Plus, emailing files is enabled. There's even an option to modify program associations for individual types of files. Some handy add-ons to the Finder are the Mobile preview and the Mobile TextEdit. The Mobile preview is an image browser for images stored directly on the iPhone without iTunes. Mobile TextEdit deals well with opening and editing TXT files.

A serious flaw with the iPhone original software equipment is the lack of a To-Do application and the lack of a Voice recorder. Now all those are up for grabs in the Installer. The To-Do list is enough to set up new tasks and its icon on the springboard shows a reminder for the number of tasks that are due. The Voice recorder allows recording of voice memos in .amr standard audio format. Recordings can later on be renamed, played or emailed.

Adding a task • listing tasks • the To-Do icon alerts you of pending tasks • listing sound recordings

We should probably conclude this chapter with an enhancement relating to iTunes synchronization. You already know that you can hardly upload any usable content to the iPhone without the iTunes software. Well, for most people out there that seems ok, as almost every mobile manufacturer uses their own proprietary synchronizing software for their handsets. But the nasty part about syncing with iTunes turns out when you try syncing the iPhone with two different computers - obviously Apple never thought of the idea that you just might happen to have two PCs - not even counting the office computer. So, what happens when you sync the iPhone with a second PC is that the new iTunes overwrites all the content uploaded beforehand. The SwapTunes software is meant for those tricky situations. With it two iTunes Music and Video repositories can be set up on the handset and switched between for syncing with different computers.

The online capability of the iPhone is among the most exciting since the Safari is the most advanced browser seen on a mobile phone to date. Yet, the Apple phone lacks some embedded online features, an IM client and a RSS reader just to name a few.

That's no longer the case after a jailbreak. The Apollo application is a nice IM client that supports MSN, ICQ, AIM and .Mac. It doesn't have contact list filtering (user status, custom groups), however it can keep the connection even when the iPhone goes to standby (normally the Wi-Fi connection would switch itself off when the handset is in standby). If the Apollo just doesn't seem enough, there are some other available IRC clients - the iRCm and Colloquy.

Listing the available accounts • the ICQ contact list • texting away

The MobileRSS reader is a native application for browsing RSS feeds. The MobileCast is a similar application that however allows users to subscribe to their favorite webcasts and listen to them without syncing with iTunes.

Setting up our RSS feed

Listening to online streaming radio is possible too with the iRadio application. It also has a preloaded list of radios to suit every taste.

The preset list of online radios

Flickr integration is available with the iPhone through a native application too. The Pushr application takes selected pictures directly from the handset's camera album and uploads them, while iFlickr directly opens the camera viewfinder to shoot an image for upload.

Setting up iFlickr

When it comes to pictures, it's worth noting that sending them as email attachments results in automatic resizing. With the SendPics application that's no longer necessary. Another application by the same author is called SendSong and it obviously allows sending songs from the music album via email. It's also used to add new ringtones to the iPhone, however a known bug is that all custom ringtones will get lost upon syncing with iTunes.

So that's about it. We are not providing any direct links to the applications, as they can be found in the Installer app. For those that haven't been tinkering under the hood of their iPhone, we hope that this article is quite revealing. The application development scene is on the rise and new applications emerge every day. A perfect example of that is the iApp-a-Day project, also available through the Installer. The project developer has committed to developing a new application for every day in November. And while those applications are not as elaborate as others, they seem to make a point about expanding the boundaries of iPhone. That's our way of bidding the iPhone a warm welcome on the Old Continent. Cheers.