iPhone
Peer-to-peer via bluetooth not supported on original iPhone
An interesting factoid was revealed today via Apple’s Support pages on a comparison chart detailing support for 3.0 features, broken down by iPhone generations. Amongst other things, the chart includes this interesting footnote:
“The original iPhone does not support using Bluetooth for peer-to-peer connectivity. It can use Wi-Fi and cellular data networks for peer-to-peer connectivity.”
This struck me as interesting, as the original iPhone does support bluetooth. In fact, according to Apple’s specs page, it even supports the same Bluetooth 2.0+EDR standard that the iPhone 3G supports. But unlike the 3G model, p2p is a no-go on the old model. This isn’t a huge deal, as you can still do peer-to-peer connections over wifi and the cellular network, so there are still ways to use peer-to-peer with the older model.
Bluetooth peer-to-peer is obviously not supported by the original iPod touch (it didn’t have a Bluetooth chipset), but will be supported on the newer iPod touch 2g, as the 3.0 software fully enables that model’s ”hidden” Bluetooth capabilities.
Since Apple has added a slew of other, more useful features to the original iPhone (copy and paste anyone?), this doesn’t strike me like the type of feature they would arbitrarily limit to the newer models to convince customers to upgrade. In fact, peer-to-peer will likely be one of the major attractions of upcoming iPhone games, which Apple has a financial interest in selling to as many customers as possible.
My guess is that implementing this feature on the older device’s chipset would require additional tinkering and engineering time, that Apple has decided is simply not worth it. Perhaps there are even a few technical hurdles that would have limited the feature in some way.
In any case, it’s something worth keeping in mind if you were considering adding peer-to-peer support to your iPhone applications.
(Sad iPhone image by Flickr user TenSafeFrogs)
Read MoreReview: VoodooPad Reader for iPhone
I’ve blogged about VoodooPad Lite before and have since purchased a full VoodooPad license (primarily in order to be able to embed images and PDFs from University into my notes – but also for that indie-supporting fuzzy-feeling goodness).
But with the release of VoodooPad Reader for iPhone, VoodooPad is now even more useful.
Syncing
You can download VoodooPad Reader free from the AppStore and you’ll also need a current version of VoodooPad on your Mac. Once everything is installed, just open your VoodooPad document on your Mac and select “File > Export Document > Export to iPhone”. Fire up the app on your phone and tap “Sync”. Provided your Mac and iPhone are both on the same wifi network, the device should now show up in the export window on your Mac and you can transfer the file over.
Features
VoodooPad Reader offers a list of all the pages in your document and easy navigation. Images and PDFs show up inline as expected and urls will also open in the built-in browser when tapped – no need to launch MobileSafari.
Drawbacks?
VoodooPad Reader is a great 1.0 release – and I’m sure we’ll see updates with more functionality in future.
Whilst I don’t think the full VoodooPad feature set would work very well on the iPhone, it might be nice to be able to make small edits to your documents on the go, or at least have a simple “note-bucket” (similar to the “Bucket” feature desktop app offers), so you could jot things down and file them away later.
Conclusion
VoodooPad Reader is a great iPhone app and a must-have for any VoodooPad or VoodooPad Lite user. It’s been rock-solid so far and the simple but functional UI works well.
Read MoreJetLinked: FutureTap on how-to acquire an iPhone application
FutureTap, a new iPhone development shop, has just announced their purchase of “Where To”, formerly a TapTapTap application. What’s interesting about this story is how openly new owner Ortwin Gentz describes the process of evaluating the application’s value before making a bid for it.
It’s a fascinating look into the business side of iPhone application development that offers a lot of insight for investors and developers alike. I know Ortwin personally, so I know “Where To” is is very capable hands.
Be sure to check out the full story at futuretap.com and Where To in the AppStore.
Read MoreReview: Zenbe Lists for iPhone
I’ve been reluctant to get invested in an iPhone todo app, because I still see Apple integrating the iPhone Notes application with the todo feature that Mac OS X offers in Mail.app.
However, it doesn’t look as though that is going to happen anytime soon, so I’ve been checking out a few iPhone todo applications. I’m not really interested in iPhone-only solutions, as I frequently write myself todos at my desk and mainly need a quick and easy way to reference those on my iPhone. But since I work on multiple Macs, I would also need a way to access my todos across multiple machines.
So far I’ve been able to narrow it down to two contenders: Zenbe Lists and Things.
Read MoreMore iPhone Cisco VPN Feedback
So now that I’m back in University, I’ve had a chance to use the iPhone’s Cisco VPN client more regularly on a daily basis.
So far it’s worked great: The VPN connection is established within a few seconds and all applications are able to access services through the VPN tunnel immediately.
Browsing speed over wifi doesn’t seem to be impacted at all, as I’d already mentioned in my first look.
My only gripe? An on/off switch for your default VPN connection that’s accessible from the top Settings menu (similar to the current “Airplane Mode” toggle) would be useful for users who frequently need to access the VPN client.
Read MoreMobileMe Push e-mail Speed Test
There have been a number of complaints about MobileMe’s Push email speed. Some users seem to be experiencing “push” delays of up to 5 minutes.
I decided to time exactly how long it takes for a Gmail message to be pushed to the iPhone over Wifi and over GPRS / EDGE: