It is that time again...The time, when people start rolling in requests for new features. Or asking when the release date is. Or asking what we have changed or for progress reports.
Well, I'm here to answer all those ahead of time, to keep the forums clean and allow the developers some peace from going through and answering what can logically be done and not done again and again.
Please, read all of this. If whatever you had wanted to say was answered here, please don't ask as you will just be linked to this thread and made to seem like a bit of a silly person by even asking what was already answered and having wasted your time and ours.Feature Requests/SuggestionsNow, you probably think
"I bet they don't know I want this feature!", well, let me tell you, you are probably wrong. Unless you want the device to be able to communicate with Australia via Morse Code natively, we probably know what you want.
Every year as the new iOS rolls around, we get inundated with requests for features. Always the same sort of requests too. There requests fall under normally two or three categories:
- Feature Requests for new features present in the new iOS. It may sound funny, but people actually request these features on a forum and project solely dedicated to providing as many of said features as we can, all for free. We already know you want these features.
However, we do have experience with this and what is possible and not, both in time needed and effort that can be put forth, or even just physically possible with the devices. We talk a lot in private boards debating what can be done and can't done, and then get to work. Asking us for features never increases the likelihood they will be made, unless you can also provide some idea as to how to accomplish that goal. This is a community driven project, and while all the team members may be brillaintly smart ( 
), we can't think of everything. We welcome gladly requests with suggestions on how to accomplish said feature. Those are productive. Just asking for a feature is not, because it doesn't change our ideas of what we can and can't do. - Requests for Cydia tweaks to be built in (Paid and free ones). We do get loads of requests for certain tweaks to be pre-installed on the firmware, sometimes not even relevant to the actual firmware's goal of providing a higher iOS look and feel, but rather just as a convenience to that one user to save them the time of installing it. That is not the point of whited00r. Every extra tweak we put in is another slowdown on the system, and we go for speed before features always, especially when those features have nothing to do with what we are about. Also, we will never include a paid tweak in whited00r. We are against piracy entirely. Go support those developers!
- Requests for features physically impossible. These requests generally fall along the lines of wanting a new service rather than feature, like iTunes music, Continuity, AirDrop, or similar. None of these are possible due to the closed source nature of iOS and all the services of higher firmwares. Nothing can ever be done to enable these sorts of features. They all either rely on higher firmware capabilities, or else require different hardware entirely. We cannot ever make these services work with the official apple ones, and we aren't about to go making our own services. Only thing we may ever do is an iCloud type thing, but that wouldn't sync across the real iCloud, only your computer or dropbox like the days of old. That being said, if you have some suggestion, just like above, for how to accomplish something without requiring a server set up on our end, please tell us!
So, if you happen to be thinking of making a feature request and it falls under the above, aside from what we said we like, please consider not doing so because you just will be linked to this thread and quoted the relevant section(s).
Why Certain Features Cannot Ever WorkI figure I will go over some of the more common questions that we have to answer as to why certain things will not and cannot ever work.
Please also read the Whited00r 7.1 FAQ/Bugs and Troubleshooting READ BEFORE POSTING as that answers some of the more common general suggestions!Custom Keyboards or themed keyboardWhile this may be possible, any keyboard tweak currently out there massively slows down the system. Think of colour keyboard and iAccess. Both of those will slow down the device by a substantial amount, and in whited00r, seeing we go for speed first, we really don't want to attempt that yet. It may be possible by image editing, but we aren't graphic people for the most part. Just developers.
Features explained above that require higher iOS versionsPlease, don't be that guy/girl/toucan/flounder that asks that question. As explained above, iOS and Apple services in general are closed source, or require a higher iOS version or hardware to work. These things can never be made to work on an older iOS version (as explained in the FAQ linked just above in more detail!), simply because it isn't possible. iOS is closed source. Nothing can be done about that
Continuity No. This is explained literally right above. It won't work. No AirDrop, no iCloud, no API, no open source. Nothing. So, if you want this, buy a new phone
More to be added as time progresses, even though everything really falls under the general section of the feature requests, people still can't understand and require specifically named things So, if your request doesn't fall under the not even able to be coded/implemented things, then it is on the list of things for us to do already without you even asking. We are just that nice
However, that being said, it is always a very long list, and the precedence certain things take place over others is already determined by the team
Release Dates, Estimated Release Dates, Progress Reports, Or Features AddedAlways with the "When is the release?", "What have you added?" and "Where are you in developing it?" whenever a new iOS comes along
This answers those questions, and a few more pertaining to betas of whited00r and why it takes so long to release an update.
Progress Reports and Features Added UpdatesWe never give these out until everything is completely done. Ever. It keeps the forums clean of requests to change features before they are even done, or add something on and increase the workload before anything is completed either.
We know this from experience of having done that in the past with pre-WD5 releases, and it didn't go so well. Yes, we didn't have as tightly run of forums back then either, and people were rarely answered, but it kept happening even when people were answered. So, better to have an official announcement that we are not going to give any of that information before we are done developing and everything
Release Dates and Estimated Release DatesGiving out these is like playing with fire. We can never know how long something will take to do, because it has never been done before. To summarize a quote I found online once:
Software developing is very hard to give estimated dates for, because it has never been done before. Yes, over time you can re-use certain aspects, but even then it shouldn't be done, because every case should have a specific use and a solution tailored just to it.
Unlike the real world, like with construction work, where they always can know how long it will take to do certain bits because they have done it before and have a set record of how long certain bits take, software development has none of that.
We really don't know how long it will take. We only know we want to work until it is done, and have a very good quality release for everyone. If we give a release date before everything is done, or even an estimated release date, anything could happen, and then people would loose faith in us. Better to just say "We are still working on it" than to say something and get everyone's hopes up only to let them down when something comes up that we were not expecting (as is often the case) and let everyone down.
Keep in mind Whited00r 7 took over
6 months to build and develop and refine, and it still isn't 100% completed or stable yet. We have not had a break at all from doing this and it is still all free from us. Be thankful
Why it takes so long for us to release updatesI know all of you want new features and quickly, but it simply can't happen. Whited00r is a small group of people (<5 actual developers/graphics people together), who don't have access to the source code of iOS, and don't have access to the latest hardware, and have to reverse engineer how everything works before even starting to work on building something new. That is in stark contrast to Apple, who have teams upon teams of developers, graphics people, and have access to the latest hardware (so no need to figure out optimizations/workarounds for getting something to work where new hardware would support it), and can change the iOS code itself, so they don't need to reverse engineer anything and can change some code if needed to get something working properly, without needing to change the code they have currently to work better. They also know how everything interacts already, and we can't even know that 100% even with the reverse engineering we do. We don't know specifically what is happening at what time with everything we do.
So, remember that as you wait
Whited00r Betas/Beta Testers?Whited00r used to release betas to the public, but not anymore. Too many people skimmed over the very important word
"beta" and just wanted the latest (and not always greatest) software from us. That lead to many forum posts and angry people when something didn't work, because they didn't realize or care it was beta and still a work in progress. None of them were helpful and constructive to towards debugging, and even when some users were, they were quickly buried by other people posting non-constructive things. This slowed down development quite a lot, and thus pushed back the official release, and ended up just angering the public and dropping down the reputation of whited00r's work by a lot.
So, instead, we now have
private betas, for select people only. Don't ask to join this unless we say we are looking
If we want you in otherwise, we will say. That being said, we have a good number of testers and they all contribute towards making the firmware better by actually going through troubleshooting and understanding the software is beta, and they don't have to worry about hundreds or thousands of other users chiming in that something doesn't work.
These betas, seeing they are private, are not for saying what features are added either. We don't show them, or say what is wrong or working in them. It is that sort of private, not the sort where only certain people can use them, but are allowed to show off what is new and such.
