TECHNOLOGY - Taking the iPhone into your own hands - With Apple tight-lipped about info, experts probe the device and develop new programs.
SAN FRANCISCO — Fueled by caffeine and curiosity, more than 300 laptop-wielding tech geeks filled a borrowed office this weekend to unlock the mysteries of Apple Inc.'s iPhone.
Apple has given out scant information about the gadget's guts and how its novel browser interacts with websites. That has presented a challenge to people who want to create software programs for the iPhone.
So the enthusiasts planned the weekend gathering, which they called iPhoneDevCamp. The organizers love the new device and did not want to whine about Apple's reticence.
But the event was not all reverential oohing and ahhing. They spent the weekend trying to bend the iPhone to their will, to make it do things they wanted it to do and some things that Apple might prefer it didn't.
"It's about embracing constraints," said Chris Messina, 26, an entrepreneur in San Francisco and an event organizer. "These constraints aren't holding us back. They are giving us focus."
Held at the San Francisco office of Adobe Systems Inc., the event was more akin to a musicians' jam session than a technology conference. This was a classic DIY -- do-it-yourself -- event: No one was allowed to quietly lurk without contributing, and participants set up chairs and did other small jobs.
They wore stickers classifying themselves as developers, hardware testers, designers or Web coders. They sat shoulder to shoulder, tapping on their computers and listening to music on headphones.
An online message board with pleas for help and announcements of breakthroughs was projected on a big screen. "Anyone know how to tell iPhoto that NO for the millionth time I do NOT want to synch the photos from my iPhone?" one message asked.
Even before the event, hackers had begun working on cracking some of the constraints of the iPhone. The multifunctional device -- a mobile phone and iPod music player that also allows Internet surfing -- went on sale June 29 with AT&T Inc. as its wireless carrier. Want to activate the phone without subscribing to AT&T? The fix is now available online. Want to jettison the Internet address bar to make more room on the screen? That's online, too.
Apple didn't sponsor or endorse the event, which Messina and his friends pulled together in three weeks. Nor was there an Apple representative available to answer their questions. As a result, much of the collective effort was channeled toward fixing things that Apple might have easily explained.
