January 12, 2007
Must have iPhone applications
The Steve Jobs Reality Distortion Field is weaking and I'm starting to realize the iPhone may not be the world rocking phone I'm hoping for. Of course, I'm going to get one... and I'm counting on that at the moment the iPhone is vaporware-- and when it finally ships it could be radically different feature wise than what Steve demoed on Tuesday. However, as it stands now, there's some important applications missing. The word is out that unlike RIM and Palm (whom have never worried about 3rd party apps "taking down the cell network"), Apple is not going to let outside developers make the iPhone a better device. Here's a list glaring applications I think are missing and could be easily built by Apple or third party developers-- most of them I can't live without on my Treo650, and many have OSX counterparts that surely could be thinned down to run on the iPhone.
| Treo | OS X | Why the iPhone needs it |
|---|---|---|
 Java |
 Java |
A no brainer? Doesn't every high end cellphone today have a Virtual Machine? |
 RSS |
 RSS |
Maybe the Safari will be doing RSS, but at the moment the iPhone's Safari isn't doing Flash or Java, so I'd worry RSS reading is another feature not there in a thinned down webkit. It's a must for waiting rooms, airports and daily bathroom breaks. |
 SSH |
 terminal |
I can't even count the number of times I was saved by being able to SSH into a server from my Treo and restart a service... With WIFI and Edge this would make the iPhone a indispensable developer's smartphone |
 IM |
 iChat |
The iPhone has SMS, but no IM? (and yes I understand you can SMS into the AIM network). Scrap all the video iChat stuff. I have no need for that. |
 u*Blog |
 ecto |
How about a blog client that can take your iPhone photos and post them to your blog? |
| Dataviz |  Office |
Shouldn't the iPhone be able to open Office documents? |
 Skype |
WIFI on a cellphone? How about letting us VOIP some of those calls. I'd assume either 1) Cingular doesn't like that idea or 2) a VOIP iPhone.. gets us much closer to marketplace confusion with Linksys trademarks. | |
 Stumbler |
How about an app that could wardrive with that WIFI? | |
 iSync |
Why can't we use the Bluetooth or WiFi to sync the iPhone? |
| Treo | More Smartphone apps I'd like to see on the iPhone | |
|---|---|---|
 Dir Assist |
One of the most valuable apps on my Treo. It does one thing and does it well. | |
 FlightStatus |
A simple app that saves you from loading the whole airline site to find out if you can have another beer the at the bar five gates away from where your plan is taking off. | |
 iPedia |
Probably successfully replaced by the iPhone's Safari | |
 SplashID |
A secure app to keep important information (account numbers, passwords, pins, etc.) You know you're going to leave the iPhone in a cab late one night leaving a bar in East Village. That data has to be secure. | |
 mSafe |
If my iPhone is lost for good to the darkside, I want to SMS it a command to self destruct... or at least rm -r / so all my info is gone for good. | |
 SerialMagic |
I hope the iPhone's bluetooth has the input profiles for anything I'd like to use-- from barcode scanners to keyboards | |
 TipAssist |
I went to college for design and not for math. | |
 TideTool |
Because you can't bring a 45ft Benateau through Hell's Gate into the East River at anytime you feel like it. (ok, I've only done that once, but I do use I regularly when I race.) |
if you take a look at the 'home' screen (or is that the app screen) previous to your - rather nice - mockup, it does seem a little empty... more to come, right?
i've heard apple have been explaining sluggish web browsing and coverflow issues on software that is simply not finished. lets hope they make significant changes regarding software-build in the run-up to launch. i'm excited about Apple's providing changes to the software in a major way in the months / years after the iPhone is out there, Jobs alluded to that in the keynote, to paraphrase; "what if we come up with something different once its shipped", curse that it'll be the rushed hardware that will let the whole thing down (as ussual, it'll scratch, get too hot, last only 20 minutes on battery etc. in the first revision- no software can help you there).
and we've been here before, remember the Intel Mac launch- hours after that keynote people high-up in Apple were being quoted as saying you couldn't run windows on Macintels. we all panicked there. and then BootCamp-- what a great app. [remember also, the hacking community got into dual-booting before Apple went ahead with the BootCamp beta, obviously the iPhone will run more than watered-down OS X] can you believe jobs made such a big deal out of it running a REAL OS compared to something like WME, this is X Mobile- if I can't run everyday .app files onto it, its not OS X. ah, RDF.
perhaps apple don't want bad-press following the launch of a 'revolutionary' product- as soon as we get 'em home we'll start loading 3rd party apps and boom or un-boom everything falls apart.
what do you think about the lack of '3G' features, myself - i don't give a damn - what a fad. give me Skype and iChat - VoIP over watching live television on a bloody phone (music's different :D).
you're a systems man aren't you Hudson- how much interference would a couple of million iPhones logging into cell networks in a '3rd-party sorta way' cause? people crash IE / Outlook everyday, we don't hear about mail servers spending much needed computational power on these hanging clients. i'm sure it must cause a blip, not a dent? what is steve on?
maybe i just had one cappuccino too many. sorry 'bout the ramble- had to outpour that somewhere.
also, this guy is a little full of himself, but the idea is interesting (annoying for apple if it takes off): http://rentzsch.com/cocoa/iphoneIndieAppDevelopment
I've installed a heap of buggy crappy apps on my treo, none of them have disrupted the cingular network. if anything would go wrong-- it would be the end user getting hit with a massive data usage bill... not a complete cell backout.