Under The Bridge

So let’s round up resources for reverse engineering iPhone executables today, just for grins, shall we?

If you’ve been around the Cocoa world for a while you’ve probably heard of class-dump, and there’s a version of it that’s iPhone-executable savvy called class-dump-x. That gives you class interfaces; if you want to dig directly into disassembling the code, your tool of choice is otx. If you want to dig around and see just what the environment is like at runtime, the usefully named Runtime Browser is your tool, source now up at Google Code.

And for digging through the output of an iPhone application or the system itself, don’t miss the invaluable iPhone/iPod touch Backup Extractor for turning opaque iTunes backups into individual files and SQLite databases just right for mucking with.

Here’s a selection of other useful tidbits and background:

How to classdump SpringBoard header files and patch it

Armchair Guide To Cocoa Reverse Engineering

Reverse engineering Apple’s OS X

[EDIT: Check out this post on reverse engineering system_profiler!]

Now, there should be just about nothing that can be kept a secret from you! Any other useful little tools or tidbits to suggest, anyone?