HN Explorer

Is there any major mobile app open sourcing the entire app sourcecode

2 points by umut ↗ HN
I know that Facebook and Twitter open source the in-built libraries for iOS, but i wonder if someone goes further and open sources the whole app's codebase.

It is obvious that there is some security concern involved, considering the exposure of private API's and etc.

5 comments

[ 1.5 ms ] story [ 19.1 ms ] thread
celticninja
are you just looking for the source code to an app so you can amend it to produce your own app? Or was there another reason you needed the sourcecode?
danielhunt
I can see major benefits from a learning point of view, and admit to wishing for the source code of some apps on my own phone for this purpose.

There are only so many HelloWorld tutorials I can read/implement (in other languages, non-mobile), before getting bored of doing tiny, completely unrealistic things with code. Seeing how a larger codebase, particularly one that I've been using as an app for some time, is structured and hangs off device services (lbs, vibration, or even just graphics) is of huge interest to me

umut
actually i have been developing a pretty advanced app with more than a million downloads... the main reason for me to ask was, if any company is brave enough to show what's running under the hood... It could be a good exercise for companies like Twitter to show everything.
celticninja
I did not intend any offence, I too would like to see the source code for some of the apps I use to see what is going on under the hood.

Not sure how easy it would be to open them up given that cracked apps appear on jailbreak sites all the time, if the DRM can be removed there must be access to the source code.

AndyJPartridge
You can't hide API's :-)

I took apart the Disney Parks App as I was frustrated at the fact the full information therein was only available if you're physically inside the park.

Firstly, I used an American friends App-Store account to download the app, as it was not on the UK App-Store and you need an US credit card to set up a US account (Please correct me if I am wrong here.)

Next I used Fake Location, a €3 app from the Cydia store on my jailbroken iPhone, so I could convince the app I was 4500 miles away in Florida in the sun.

Finally, I used "mitmproxy" on my Mac, to proxy the web access the Disney app was making to the server, and noted the URL's and over time worked out the structure of the API and it's JSON replies.

Hope this is of use :-)