Utah Open Source Planet

I’ve been tracking the iPhone app store pretty closely, as I have been really interested to see what people are developing.  The first day it was available (the Thursday before the iPhone 3G was released), there were quite a few interesting apps, but most were trivial proof of concept apps that were released just to show what could be done.  

But now, we see more useful apps coming to the Store, and many of them are free (the economics of the iPhone apps are an interesting discussion on their own).  While I don’t have an iPhone yet (I’m waiting until September when AT&T indicates I can get the subsidized price), I’ve already started to collect some apps: 

eBay Mobile:  Yes, I use eBay.  I’ve used eBay ever since I worked there, and I still like to check it out as a way to price objects.  

PayPal:  I use PayPal rather extensively when billing clients.  It’s convenient for me, and convenient for them to make the payment through PayPal.  I also pay for my items in iTunes and Second Life through PayPal.  

eReader:  I’ve always loved eReaders, though I would like to see a free app that will include text files.  But, in the mean time, I’ll stick with the eBooks that I have gathered over the years.  

Evernote:  I’ve never used Evernote, but I do like the idea of having notes to myself available everywhere I am.  Perhaps I’ll start to remember things.  

Last.fm:  An internet radio on a mobile platform.  Do I really need to explain it?  ^_^

Mocha VNC Lite:  Not that I would use it on an iPhone on a regular basis, but having a VNC client available should I ever need to use it, that’s just good preparation. 

Palringo IM:  Instant Messenger, much like GAIM and Adium.  It covers all the main messenger protocols out there, which makes it really useful.  

Remote:  Turns your iPhone/iPod Touch into a WiFi Remote for your iTunes and Apple TV.  So should you lose your tiny remote…

Twinkle:  A twitter app that doesn’t have ads.

WordPress:  App for blogging from your iPhone.  Not sure how it works quite yet, but I’m pretty excited to find out! 

WritingPad:  A text editor.  It would be handy for those quick spells of inspiration that comes at the oddest moments.  

So, from my wishlist, only a few things have not been realized…yet.

Presentation Software:  I haven’t seen any presentation software show up on the iPhone App Store.  If I just haven’t seen it, please post the app in the comments.  I would even be willing to pay for that app.

Bluetooth Keyboard Support:  Still no bluetooth tethering available.  For this I’m still holding out for the iPod Slate.  ^_^

Terminal:  A lot of people have said that a terminal would just not be available for the iPhone because it would open up a whole can of worms for Apple.  I don’t agree, but until the app comes I’m not going to hold my breath.  But until then, I think I could get by.  ^_^

iCal:  As I haven’t purchased the iPhone yet, I don’t know if iCal on the iPhone is any better.  For those of you who do have an iPhone, can you view multiple calendars at once, and add an event to a specific calendar (without it creating a whole new calendar just for that one entry)?

Second Life Client:  I know this probably sounds silly, but wouldn’t it be nice to be able to access Second Life from any location, particularly if you were teaching/attending a college class in Second Life?  Well, for now you can’t with the iPhone, but it’s coming!  Vollee is developing their handset Second Life client for the iPhone, and hope to have it available soon.  Needless to say, I hope to see it in the App store before the end of September.  ^_^

DOS Emulator:  I haven’t seen one yet, but it may be possible to port DOSBox over to the iPhone.  Perhaps a project to get to know Objective-C…

VoIP:  Yes, there is a VoIP app (TruPhone), but it requires using their system with their rates.  I would prefer to have a VoIP client that could be configured to use my own system.  Of  course, it seems to be a Skype competitor, and in that arena they look very promising.  

So that’s my list, and what the market has done to fulfill it.  I’m still waiting for a couple of features, but all in all there are enough apps out there to make getting an iPhone worthwhile.

Yes, it’s started.  So many bloggers, “news” sites, and rumor mills are talking about the expected 3G iPhone, and how it will change the world.  Lots of sources “close to the 3G iPhone project” have been touting the appearance of the new Wunderkind of the Smart Phone genre, and the many bells and whistles that they will be sporting.  But one aspect of the new iPhone has been oddly silent:  the up and coming applications that everyone is expecting.  

Now, as I’m sure comes as no surprise to those who follow my blog (thanks you two! ^_^), I’m very pro-Mac.  I like the Mac platform, I like the fact that it’s now 100% UNIX compatible as of 10.5, and I like the fact that it’s simple to use.  Part of that has to do with the design of the hardware, but most of it has to do with the applications that are available for the Mac.  That’s what really makes a Mac a Mac.  You can change a windowing system on either Vista or even Linux to look like a Mac, but it still doesn’t have the same applications running.  

Well, we know that Apple already has released various beta versions of the iPhone OS SDK in order to encourage developers to write programs.  This is great, but we haven’t heard much from developers as to the applications they are writing.  Many have speculated, but none confirmed the release of a Microsoft Office suite (surely watered down if not just a viewer) for the iPhone, and some other apps like a version of Flash from Adobe.  But nothing concrete.  

Well, if I were calling the shots, or at least if I were looking for Apps that would appeal to me, here would be my list: 

1. Presentation Software:  I want to be able to show a Keynote from my iPhone.  This could be either something built into iTunes sharing (like photo albums), or an actual Keynote viewer and basic editor.  Either way, I would like to see an app that will let me present Keynotes.  Then I would just need to have a way to hook up the iPhone to a projector.  
2. Text Editing:  This could be as simple as a plugin for Google Docs (which didn’t work well on the first gen iPhone), or a separate application that is more than just a note taker, but could be less then a full fledged version of Pages or Word.  But typing on the software keyboard?  let’s talk about: 
3. Bluetooth Keyboard Support:  Yes!  Let us tether a bluetooth keyboard to the blasted thing!  It would be convenient on so many levels.  And it’s one major requirement I have for the rumored iPod Slate. 
4. Spreadsheet Viewing:  This could be just as simple as adding the Preview option from Leopard into the iPhone OS.  I’m not thinking about using a spreadsheet program on the iPhone, that’s something to do on a real computer.  But it would be nice to be able to read a spreadsheet that is sent to you, or review it before a presentation. 
5. Terminal:  Yes, I want a terminal on my Mac.  Why?  Because I use it constantly while checking connections, servers, ports, and running various apps.  It would be invaluable for any IT professional to be able to SSH into a remote machine while traveling, check on a server status, restart services, etc. all while away from a real computer.  
6. Full Version of iCal:  I want something more robust than the current iCal software on the iPhone.  All new events created on the thing shouldn’t create a new calendar.  It should also be able to subscribe to new calendars, and color-code them.  That would be nice. 

For a while I've been trying to get a better way of managing my calendars on systems.  Between my iCal on my laptop, at home, my phone, and my google cals (gmail account, and apps for my domain),  I've gotten worse, rather than better at keeping things in sync.

My largest problem was that I didn't want any single location to be the absolute truth in terms of knowledge, especially when it came to choosing where to edit.  As an example, I dont' have to have to go to google calendar to edit, just because my iCal can only *read* from there, or vice-versa.  So enter GCALDaemon, a Java (I know) app which can run on linux, mac, and more and allow bi-directional work between my gcal, and ical, kontact, and more.  It works quite well, except the direction don't apply for the current Leopard release of OSX.  The main difference is in the location of where iCal stores its information, which is now in:

~/Library/Calendars/<Unique-id>.calendar/Events/*.ics

Which just happens to be the data you need for the config file, instead of the location they originally suggest.  Also of concern was that by default, my google apps calendar wouldnt' give me a "private" link, but I just had to munge the url of the public ics file with a s/public/private/ and it worked.  I now have my google calendars syncing bi-directionally with my laptop and desktop.

I haven't tried yet, but it also has a tool for getting an LDAP access to your google contacts, which will be nice.

It's finally arriving, but of course I don't have it yet.  Yes Google has announced IMAP access for it's popular gmail and google apps accounts, currently rolling out to all users.  While it's a cool interface, this was one of my biggest beefs with their system.  No longer will this be a problem :)

And for those who want to use Mail.app (my wife) here is a hint for getting your default folders to sync correctly: Map Gmail Folders to Mail.app Default Folders

And for those that don't know.  Why IMAP?  IMAP is the protocol that lets you view your mail on the server, instead of just downloading a copy.  So if you delete an email, it's deleted on the server.  If you move it to a folder, it is on the server also.  So you can use whatever email client you want on your personal box, and still see your changes when you view it in the web interface.

Thanks to lifehacker for linking to the Visor app today.  This is an excellent app, Linux users might already be familiar with yakuake for KDE, which serves the same purpse.  Basically it's a terminal emulator that can drop down/windowshade just like the terminal functions in popular FPS games like quake.

This is an extremely handy tool for people like me that always just want a terminal handy for a large number of tasks done during the day.  I normally keep a virtual desktop tasked to this, with the handy iTerm with tabs open, I like having a quick tool available when I'm in another desktop, just for the tasks not worth switching for.  A quick hot key and a real terminal.app session slides down for easy use.

Visor accomplishes this via the SIMBL tool, which allows you to plugin extension code into cocoa based applications.