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iPhone Reloaded: Architecting an iPhone Server

It is the iPhone, the singular creation upon which Apple's Mobile Wi-Fi platform is predicated. While its primary construct, and ergo heretofore deliberate focus, has been the express realization of an unparalleled client-side experience, it remains at its core irrevocably a UNIX-based operating system and hence capable of infinitely more.

While the sublime profundity of said client-side, and thus end-user, experience continues to approach perfection, anomalous entities -- self-designated 133t hax0rs -- have also succeeded in bending, perhaps even breaking, the iPhone's default parameters with a secondary, decidedly more server-oriented goal, vis-a-vis the porting of Apache, Python, vim, curl, and more apropos this posting: lighttpd.

Witness, as excerpted from the Unofficial Apple Weblog, the initial causality of such an implementation:

Mark Hoekstra of GEEKtechnique offers real-world proof that an iPhone can, indeed, function as a web server. He put up a static page and served 411 unique visitors during the time his server was offline for maintenance. Obviously, that's not battle-testing for a busier server, and the lack of database queries certainly aided the capacity of the tiny server, but it's definitely a fun example of the capabilities of a (hacked) iPhone.

Indeed.

Endemic to certain entities within the system are the simultaneous and yet conflicting desires for increased power in ever smaller footprints, previously demonstrated in the phenomena known as "Mac Mini Server Farms".

Will any such ridiculously intriguing architectures reliant solely upon the inimitable iPhone follow?

Inevitably.

Raging Thunder on the iPhone - WOW

We’ve covered gaming on the iPhone more than a few times here at PD. And the general consensus is a combination of hope, excitement, and we-can't-freaking-wait. Well jailbreakers, you might not have to. After getting a glimpse of Raging Thunder (via TUAW), a car racing game made by Polarbit and made available through Installer.app, all I can say is...

WOW.

I gave the game a quick test drive and the graphics are impressive for any handheld, not to mention a cell phone. The screen (with help of the accelerometer) functions much like Mario Kart for the Wii meaning tilt right to turn right, tilt left for left. Gameplay is fluid and responsive and it is just mind numbing fun to be playing something so advanced on your phone.

To be sure, there are flaws and glitches but at this point it is almost to be expected. (Tip: try to avoid pressing the home button mid-race. Just, trust me). But for one of the first steps into gaming on the iPhone, Raging Thunder works better than you would ever imagine.

Is it June yet?

Review: Case-Mate Signature Series Perforated Leather Case for iPhone

The Case-Mate Signature Series Perforated Leather Case for iPhone ($34.95) is a subtlety styled, high quality leather case that offers nearly full protection for your iPhone. It provides easy access to all buttons and ports on the iPhone and is a breeze to slide in. How does the Case-Mate Case perform?

Read on for the rest of the review!

Send in the iClones: Philips Xenium x800

Another day, another iClone! This one comes courtesy of the fine folks at Philips, and Gizmodo shares the duplicative details:

PC World China is saying that the upcoming Xenium x800 will have an "e2e" screen— that's an edge-to-edge touchscreen, apparently. From the photos it looks like it's got an orientation sensor, Wi-Fi, a browser, a curved design and a bevelled metal edge. Sounds a little familiar?

It sure does. It sounds just like the Samsung Instinct, Nokia Tube, RIM (and RIM), and HTC Touch Diamond, and every other device trying to be the iPhone in imitative form rather than revolutionary spirit.

How about iCloning that?

.Mac To Be Revamped Alongside iPhone 2.0?!

Updating yesterday's story about .Mac getting the push-email treatment in iPhone 2.0, TUAW's tipsters are back with this little gem:

According to our anonymous tipster, .Mac will undergo a complete revamp that will coincide with the iPhone 2.0 launch (which everyone expects to occur at WWDC 08).

Again with the asking and receiving, eh?

Rumored highlights for the updated .Mac include full wireless (cell + wifi?) calendar, contacts, and email (an Apple Exchange anyone?) and .Mac support for -- you guessed it! -- Windows.

First El Jobso gives PC users a cool glass of iTunes and iPhone, and now a possible consumer-centric push service.

Did I mention how June can't come fast enough yet?

Review: HWpen, Native App-a-Week

Can’t wait any longer for Native Apps? Me neither. (Late) June seems too far away? I’m with you. So why wait, when you can jailbreak! Over the next couple months before 2.0 is released, I’ll give you guys a glimpse into the jailbroken world of native apps every week. Plus: let's face it, Jailbreaking isn't going anywhere. The SDK is awesome, but some people won't settle for anything less than full-on access to all the hidden bits of the iPhone.

With Apple including handwriting recognition for Chinese characters in the latest 2.0 firmware build, I think it’s a great time to see what handwriting apps are currently available for jailbroken iPhones. HWpen is an app made by the developers over at Chinese company Hanwang and it offers handwriting recognition for both Chinese and English. Is it successful? Better than the iPhone’s soft keyboard?

Read on for the rest of the review! (and remember you'll need a Jailbroken iPhone to take advantage of this native app)

NBC Redux: iTunes No, iPhone Yes

Well, NBC is still boycotting iTunes, but in a surprising move, they're back on the iPhone (and iPod Touch). How? Streaming live through the built-in to MobileSafari QuickTime player -- take that, Flash snobs! -- and without advertising!

Silicon Valley Insider has the Hulu-trumping details:

NBC is streaming full episodes of "The Office" and "30 Rock" to the iPhone in unprotected Quicktime format. Without advertising. Go figure. To get there, go to nbc.com on an iPhone (or presumably, an iPod touch). Scroll past Howie Mandel and Sam Waterston, and NBC invites you to "WATCH FULL EPISODES!" Be warned: the quality is pretty bad and our borrowed iPhone froze twice.

Now, while I do get a snazzy iPhone-optimized web page, I don't get the watch full episodes option (probably because I'm not in the US, and were I to see such US content, the world would explode), so if you get it to work, please let me know, and let me know how well!

Weekly Web App Review: Hahlo

Attack of the iClones: Sprint to Spend $100 Million on iClone Advertising!

Either Gizmodo is pulling a CES-TV-Blackout caliber gag, or Sprint has done lost their iCloning minds:

Starting May 9th, Sprint will begin a massive, $100 million marketing campaign aimed straight at the iPhone's nether regions. Stacking its 3G Instinct against the iPhone, Sprint hopes to show that EVDO and GPS make their product way better than anything coming out of Cupertino.

Wha-wha-wha-what?!

What will $100 million buy the Samsung Instinct? Ads. Ads that compare them spec-for-spec with last year's iPhone...

Daring Fireball's John Gruber sums it up well:

[I]t boggles the mind that Sprint is hanging a $100 million dollar advertising campaign on two features — GPS and EVDO networking — that the iPhone is widely-rumored to be picking up in its next-generation hardware. Worse, side-by-side, even in commercials commissioned by Sprint, the Instinct looks like crap next to an iPhone — the screen is way smaller and way less bright. What’s clear is that Sprint is run by MBA-trained executives who see everything as a general “business” problem. In their minds, the same things apply to selling phones as toothpaste. How about this idea: Take $100 million and use it to design a better phone?

What do you think?

iPhone 2.0: .Mac "Push" Email?

Ask and ye shall receive, dig deep into the code and ye shall find fresh-baked Apple-y goodness.

No sooner did Apple drop iPhone 2.0 SDK Beta 5, than the developers began scouring it for any hint of what's to come, and as usually TUAW serves up what they found:

A certain, unnamed individual sent us some pictures of the latest build of the iPhone firmware showing .Mac push e-mail. The picture shows the main Settings page with a new button: "Fetch new data." When you click the button, you are taken to a list of your mail accounts, where you can choose between either "fetch" or "push." According to Mr. Anonymous, while .Mac is offering push e-mail, you are currently not able to do contact or calendar syncing.

Check out TUAW's gallery for the pics.

Boy, Apple is pushing the features fast and furiously. We already knew about "push" via the Microsoft licensed ActiveSync, which offers full Exchange support, but complementing that with .Mac for non-Exchange users? Very nice!

(Of course, much as I love Back-to-My-Mac, iSync, iDisk, and other .Mac features, it really needs a more competitive feature-set upgrade -- Imagine Google-like offerings and capacities with Apple's ease of use and integration! -- especially for the rather steep $100 a year.)

June really can't come fast enough!

Installer.app Gets Search

I wish therefore I command? I command therefore I receive? iPod therefore ..wait..

Remember last week's review of Installer.app? One of my main complaints about the program was the lack of a search feature. Well, the folks at Nullriver sure know how to treat a blogger, because Installer.app just got an update. And it has a search feature.

The search feature is still not as integrated as I would like because it doesn’t appear on the main screen. Meaning you would still have to narrow down the category before you can activate search. A good workaround is if you click All Categories and search from there, this should allow you to search everything. Either way, it’s a huge improvement to Installer.app and goes to show how hard the Nullriver developers are working to improving the app.

iPhone Risk: Latin American Landslide!

First Canada, then 10 Vodafone-serviced countries spanning Europe, Asia, Africa, and Oceania, now Engadget brings word that Mexico-based America Movil has announced it will be bringing the iPhone not only to its own home town, but to potentially all the 16 Latin American and Caribbean countries/territories/protectorates it provisions!

These include Mexico, Brazil, Columbia, Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, the United States (almost certainly off limits because of AT&T), Guatamala, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras, Ecuador, Peru, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Jamaica, and Chile.

And the Phone Different Jumbotron now reads:

As with the other recent announcements, no details were provided as to when, how much, or whether or not there would be exclusivity or anything approaching special (read: reasonable) unlimited data plans. It also leaves another pressing question:

Who's next?!

Tip O' The Week: Outsmart Your Sensor

The iPhone is sensor-ific. It can sense if it's turned sideways, held up close to your face, and whether or not you are in a dark room or out in the sunlight. This week's Tip o' the Week is a simple way to exploit one of the sensors on your iPhone to save you some steps and power at the same time. Curious? Read on for the Tip!

iPhone 2.0 SDK Beta 5: Tools and Tweaks

TUAW and iPhone dev extraordinaire Erica Sadun reports that Apple has dropped the svelte-ish 1GB iPhone 2.0 SDK Beta 5 and accompanying firmware:

The fifth beta version of the iPhone SDK is now available. Log in to the iPhone Dev Center and take advantage of all the development resources available to you—a new version of the iPhone SDK, updated documentation, the latest release notes, and more.

No word yet on what secrets deep delving this latest code may reveal, but if past discoveries are any indication, literally anything is possible (except for cut and paste, of course).

Any guesses?

Most Popular Camera Phone on Flickr? The iPhone.

I use Flickr a lot, whether its perusing for great pictures or posting some of my own, Flickr is the standard on which photo-sharing websites are judged upon. And according to Flickr data (per TUAW) the iPhone, in only a years time, has become the most used phone on the popular photo-sharing website. So is the iPhone the mobile camera for which the rest of the industry is judged upon? Well, I wouldn’t go that far.

Is this good news? Of course, it goes to show how much the iPhone is used beyond the typical parameters of a phone. But it is interesting, considering the camera on the iPhone is often maligned, overlooked and bypassed. Being number one in mobile web usage makes sense because Safari on the iPhone is just that good. With a sub-par camera being number one, well that should push Apple to further develop the iPhone’s camera.

One of my biggest wishes on the next iPhone, aside from 3G and GPS, is a much more advanced camera: better resolution, auto-focus, zoom, video, geotagging, etc. If the iPhone can be number one on Flickr with the current camera, imagine what it could do with something better?

Canon Rebel XTi watch your back?

Attack of the iClones: HTC Touch Diamond - Wait-a-Thon!

[Note: This a a Wait-A-Thon post! Comment on this post -- or any post tagged "Wait-a-Thon" -- for your chance to win a $100 iTunes Gift Card!]

Usually we wait for This Week in Smartphone Schadenfreude to mock review the competition (such as it is), but if they bring the hype, we'll bring the satire, special-edition style.

Samsung, Nokia (yeah, I'd forgotten about them as well...), and RIM (and RIM) have already sent in their iClones, and now it's HTCs turn to make mid-2008 look like early 2007 all over again... Ludites and gentlemen, the HTC Touch Diamond.

(At least I think it's the Diamond, they've pre-announced like 100 different Touch trademarks lately, so it could be the Pro or the Cruise or even the Cubic Zirconium for all I can tell...)

Speaking of 2007, as we all know when Steve Jobs took the stage at Macworld and pulled the iPhone from his pocket, it's form factor was exactly like every other Palm, RIM, and WinMob device out there, with a tiny screen, application independent tic-tactile keyboard, always unstylish stylus, and and OS and interface straight out of 2001.

Wait, no it wasn't. El Jobso unveiled a revolutionary new device with a giant, hi-res screen, multi-touch input, and an interface the likes of which the industry had never seen before. But they (and we) have certainly seen it since -- reflected funhouse mirror-like in almost every signature device from every company released post-iPhone.

Read on!

No Vacation for AT&T, 3G iPhone Late June?

Sorry AT&T workers, I guess you’ll have to re-schedule that Hawaiian vacation. The Boy Genius Report reports that an internal memo has been making the rounds over at AT&T and it strongly discourages vacation time between June 15th and July 12th.

To quote the memo, AT&T “anticipates heavier than normal customer traffic” and an “exciting Summer Promotional Launch to enable your sales to soar”. I wonder what product fits that description: exciting, heavier than normal, soar..okay maybe I'm reading between the lines.

Does this mean that AT&T is positioning themselves for the launch of the 3G iPhone? That would be the obvious conclusion considering that AT&T had issued a similar no-vacation mandate just a year ago. For what you ask? The original iPhone.

But with no Apple “special event” currently scheduled, can we now expect the 3G announcement to be made during WWDC’s keynote (June 9th)? When is the FCC going to get their hands on this little, powerful puppy? As much as I thought the 3G iPhone wasn’t coming until fall, it looks like June will be the date.

iPhone Risk: Italy Redux + No More Exclusivity?!

No sooner did Vodafone announce it would be carrying the iPhone in 10 countries, then previously rumored Telecom Italia chimed in with a hearty "anche io!" ("Me too" for you non-Romantics)

Apple Insider quotes:

"Telecom Italia announces today that it has signed an agreement with Apple to bring the iPhone to Italy within the year."

Mama mia, Tim Cook wasn't joking around when he said Apple wasn't tied to any particular business model, now was he?

Is this something particular to the specific Italian market? A test-case for carrier non-exclusivity? Or a sign of how business for Apple will be done from now on?

What do you think?

iPhone Risk: And Then There Were 17!

Figures. Right after I go to all the trouble of cut and pasting together an April iPhone Risk Roundup, Vodafone goes ahead and announces 10 more countries, more than doubling the amount of countries having, or set to have, the iPhone! Apple Insider goes on locations:

"Later this year, Vodafone customers in Australia, the Czech Republic, Egypt, Greece, Italy, India, Portugal, New Zealand, South Africa and Turkey will be able to purchase the iPhone for use on the Vodafone network," the carrier said in a statement without providing further detail.

A look at our newly overpopulated score board:

Vodofone, of course, owns Verizon in the US, which is rumored to have taken a pass on Apple's iPhone, leading to the current AT&T exclusivity deal. Back with a vengeance much?

Like the Canadian detail-free announcement from Rogers, it's also likely these deals will involve the as-yet-unannounced-but-widely-expected 3G iPhone, though given the rest of the world's 3G-centricity, it certainly should. Also unknown is whether these will be the exclusive deals involving revenue sharing and pressure towards unlimited data plans Apple pioneered with the initial iPhone launch last year.

What do you think?

(PS - Apple, help a blogger out and release more of your little flag circle icons. Those things don't Photoshop themselves, b'okay?)