It is ironic and cool enough to know that it is Google which develops an open-source program to enable iPhone users remote access to their Macs for free. Dubbed as Telekinesis, iPhone users simply need to install the software on their Mac by following the instructions here. Then they can do that while mobile:
1. Stream music and videos from your computer
2. Screen capture with mouse click and basic typing support
3. Simple iTunes Remote control
4. Browse your files
5. Run applescript remotely
6. iSight image capture
7. Basic Spotlight search
8. Easily create and add more apps
The software is designed as a kind of demo that many improvements are needed to make it fully functional. Yet it is already a very practical program guaranteed to put a smile on Apple fanatics.
A mysterious new mobile application called Pointui Home Beta 0.92 System which is a look-alike of iPhone user interface is coming in just before 2008 New Year’s Day.
Not much details on this mobile app except that it appears to be an enhancement of Windows Mobile. Check out the YouTube for the video shown above.
iPhone’s lack of video recording capabilities was and still is cataloged by many users as being “pretty lame”, “pathetic”, “surprisingly in a bad way” and so on. I wish I could say these are harsh judgments but I can’t, since a multimedia handset unable to record video is… well, let’s say it’s an incomplete multimedia device.
Still, it looks like the iPhone can record video, as a new third party application proves it. Developed by a hard working fellow from Monster and Friends, the application can, for the moment, record only a 5 second video at 10 frames per second (fps) and can replay the video after the recording is complete. However, it can’t save the video, but the final version of the application should be able to do that, as well as record videos for an unlimited time (well, as far as the phone’s memory allows it), at a 2 Megapixel resolution and a quality of 30 fps. Also, the final version is said to bring a User Interface too, because the current version does not have one. It’s a beta release, so that’s forgivable.
I’m not sure if the application is named Drunknbass or if this is the nickname of its developer, but that’s not really important. What matters is that the new app can be downloaded from the Monster and Friends website for all the iPhone users to test it until the final version will come out.
Since Apple officially approved third party apps for its smartphone, we’re now waiting for other developers to come with new applications and improve the handset. Maybe a first app to think of is one that enables the device to send and receive MMS, although I guess that would be a difficult thing to do… But developers aren’t afraid of the word “difficult”, right?
iPhone lovers will be happy to find that the next SDK, yet to be released by Apple in February 2008 will bring Java support. If the rumor is true, this will be a real milestone for Apple, which “by default” doesn’t like and doesn’t accept open source operating systems.
Even after Steve Jobs stated that “Java’s not worth building into the iPhone”, it seems that Apple reconsidered the fact that the iPhone is not really a business phone and agreed to give it some entertainment functions. Furthermore, you should know that Apple thought about embedding Java compatibility into the iPhone even before launching it on the market.
This is proved by the ARM11 family processor running at speeds up to 667 MHz that is compatible with Java accelerated engine Jazelle. Jazelle is a technology that executes the Java bytecode directly in hardware on many ARM microprocessors. It is able to achieve a similar high peak performance to software compilation techniques, with fast start-up and smooth execution in a small memory footprint. Jazelle also enables multitasking, which means that users will be able to run multiple Java applications and games in the background with minimal overhead.
Anyway, the source of this rumor is Sun’s technical evangelist for the Java mobile and embedded community, Terrence Barr, who said: “It is quite likely that people will start porting phoneME to the iPhone to provide Java that way. I expect that to happen as a community effort”. This will most likely happen at the beginning of next year when Apple is set to release another SDK for iPhone owners.
Even if there’s nothing official stated by Apple, let’s hope that this will become real and that iPhone fans will be able to use and play Java applications and games on their devices. I hope that this will also stop those that were “mourning” because of the limited functionality of the device.
