On Sep 19, 3:59*am, Michael Ash wrote:
Matt Herron Jr. wrote:

Has anyone thought about applications for the iPhone 3G platform in a
glider? *It has an excellent sunlight readable screen with touch
interface that causes no loss of image quality. *It has an
accelerometer built in, a GPS that is probably better than spot,
wireless for speech commands, remote interfaces, etc. fast processor,
lots of ram for large maps and gesture recognition for panning,
zooming, etc. *Web access (where available) for a quick weather update
before launch. *Seems like an opportunity waiting to happen...

I agree, it's a great platform for such an explanation. I've used and
have been programming an iPhone since November. I'm lead programmer
on a product that allows people to write Java programs and compile
them to native code or the iPhone (and also for BREW and Windows
Mobile).


It's something I've given some thought to. I don't have an iPhone and
don't want to pay for the expensive subscription, so I was hoping that the
second version of the iPod Touch would include GPS. Unfortunately it
didn't, so the iPhone is still the only one with that.

I guess it varies from country to country but here in NZ Vodafone have
recently introduced a plan for $40/month (US$27) -- of which nearly
$12 is effectively paying back the $280 subsidy in the $699 purchase
price on an 8 GB iPhone. Or you can pay the full $979 up front and
use it on prepay, which costs you nothing if you don't use the phone.
Data on prepay costs $1 for anything between 200 KB and 10 MB on a
given a calendar day, or 0.5c/KB if you use less than 200 KB. (and $1
a MB if you go past 10 MB :-( )


As for functionality, seems like it would be great to have a moving map,
glide amoeba, thermal finder, and any other goodies that could be stuffed
in there. I agree that it packs a great deal of power and would be a very
capable machine.

To give people an idea what it can do, it's got very much the same
CPU, RAM and disk (flash) specifications as a high end laptop computer
from around 2000 e.g. the "Pismo" G3 PowerBook, or a 2nd generation
iMac DV (the ones that got FireWire and a DVD drive). The main
exception is that the screen is 20% of the size (153600 pixels vs
786432), but against that the 3D hardware is much better -- I grabbed
the X-Plane version a few days ago and it's very smooth.


Unfortunately Apple has some heavy restrictions on what you can do with
the platform, including one that says "Applications may not be designed or
marketed for real time route guidance". I don't know if that would cover
this sort of software or not. From what I hear it's extremely difficult to
get a definitive answer about these things out of Apple without simply
building the app and trying to get it approved. It is possible to work
around these limitations and bypass Apple for distribution, but it tends
to be more work and limit your audience, making it kind of risky.

It's a bit restrictive if you want to put the program into the
AppStore, yes. I believe that the turn by turn guidance restriction
is purely due to licensing terms for the street maps, and possibly
some liability reasons if you go the wrong way down a one-way street.
If there is any justice then that would not apply to an aviation
application.

For such a specialized application I don't know if getting into the
AppStore is such a big thing. It does simplify the "getting paid"
problem hugely, especially for very cheap programs where transaction
costs would normally kill you, but as the market will be small I don't
think you're going to see a soaring application from anyone for $1 or
$2.

Other distribution mechanisms:

- via Cydia. No restrictions at all, but users have to be prepared to
run Pwnage to "jailbreak" their phones. It's easy, but does
potentially void your warranty. (but if there are any problems it's
99.999% likely that restoring the original software will leave no
traces of naughtiness). And developers have to find a way to get paid
and operate their own store, exactly the same as for every non-iPhone
platform.

- via Apple's "ad hoc" distribution mechanism. A developer can
collect up to 100 iPhone serial numbers from other people and directly
send them a working program that they can install locally via iTunes
(on Mac or Windows). This is intended for beta testing or use in
something like a school.

- anyone who pays Apple's $99 fee (and has a Mac) can become a
developer and compile and install any and as many programs as they
want. That's fine for Open Source programs. It's also easily
possible to distribute 99% of such as program to others as a compiled
library that they can't easily reverse engineer or alter.


In short: the logistics and costs of selling and distributing a
program for the iPhone are similar to any other existing mobile
device. Except if you can get it into the AppStore, in which case it
is uniquely cheap, easy, and convenient for both buyer and seller.