Today Ripdev, known for its Installer software for iPhone, has released Mac OS X application called InstallerApp. This app, once installed on a Mac, will allow users to browse, download to Mac’s hard drive and install to iPhone applications, distributed via Installer and Cydia for iPhone.

What’s the point of the application, you might ask? Since you can do all that directly on the iPhone, why bother with the app on a computer? Well, you see, the app comes quite handy in several cases.

Let’s say you have many third-party apps installed on your iPhone that you’ve found via Installer or Cydia. Apple just released a new firmware with some features that you are dying to try (not as exciting as copy-paste in 3.0, but still. By the way, did I mention that InstallerApp will support iPhone 3.0 as well?). So anyway, you have all these apps and new firmware from Apple that, once installed, will delete all “non-App Store” apps from the iPhone, and you will have to start over again, first finding all those repositories, then installing apps one by one. That’s worst case scenario.
Now imagine that you have InstallerApp installed on Mac. You just synchronize all these apps (both from Installer and Cydia) to your computer, install new firmware to your iPhone, and then synchronize all apps back from Mac to iPhone! No more individual installation of every single application on tiny iPhone’s screen thanks to the InstallerApp.
Other case where InstallerApp might be useful is when you for some reason don’t have access to the WiFi network and your access to the Internet is limited to a computer with a fixed connection like ethernet cable or even dial-up. Instead of wasting that precious mobile traffic on iPhone (not all users have unlimited data plans unfortunately) you can download any app from Installer or Cydia on your computer with InstallerApp, then connect your iPhone with USB cable to the computer and “upload” that app to your iPhone.
InstallerApp basically eliminates a need to have two different installers on your iPhone — no need to keep Cydia if you don’t like that pesky Linux stuff it brings to the iPhone. As we mentioned above InstallerApp supports both Installer and Cydia repositories, so you just enter repository’s URL in the Sources dialog within the Preferences window — it will automatically recognize repo’s type and will add packages listed in it to the Categories catalog. Then you just either browse Categories for packages or type few letters into a convenient search field and application will show you a particular package you are looking for. Then press Install button and InstallerApp will do its thing for putting the app on your iPhone. If you don’t have iPhone connected — no worries, app will be downloaded to Mac’s HD and the next time you synchronize InstallerApp with your iPhone, all apps will be copied to the iPhone.
InstallerApp comes with free built-in Pusher software that can “push” mobile Installer.app on your iPhone without making a jailbreak first (and making your iPhone insecure). Many apps won’t require a jailbreak but in case if some app does (mostly it’s the apps from Cydia that do) Pusher will also install DPKG subsystem required by those nasty apps. But here’s the thing: instead of just putting dozens of MBs of files that Cydia installs on the iPhone, Pusher will install a nice, clean, optimized version of the DPKG, without superfluous tools. It will also will not replace system libraries the way Cydia does it — so you’ll have Cydia support and safer iPhone too.
InstallerApp is a commercial app costing $7 that will allow you to synchronize up to three different iPhones with a Mac. It works without a license too — you can download and install packages on a Mac, use Pusher to put mobile Installer.app on the iPhone, but you won’t be able to synchronize applications between Mac and iPhone.
Oh, and did I mention that version of InstallerApp for Windows is also in the works?