ipod/iphone scientific development
By sanandak at Fri, Aug 8 2008 12:26pm |
All,
The ipod/iphone is an appealing platform for field instrumentation control - built in GPS lets you tag location, take photos, and if the instrument has wifi, connect to it and display data in a nice way.
BUT, in order to do that, it seems you have to get onto the app store to download the app to ones personal ipod/iphone...? No way to develop "for personal use only?" (officially at least).
Anybody else thinking along these lines?
Cheers,
By subscribing to iPhone
By subscribing to iPhone sdk, you can develop and test applications for iPod touch and iPhone, running them on a simulator (all this on os x 10.5)... To run them to a real device you need to apply for the 99$ program even if you don't intend to put some of your apps to the AppStore. You can then install your applications to up to 100 devices, without submitting your app to the appstore of course.
The only free way would be to jailbreak your iphone or ipod touch and use toolchain, but I never did it so I can't talk much about it...
Pierre-Henri
thanks
Pierre-Henri - thanks for the info. I didn't realize that you could deploy the app to 100 devices. That would work for what I am considering...
By the way, I have downloaded and modifying your PHGraph Framework - if I get something useful I will let you know!
Thanks!
Sridhar
About PHGraph, note that
About PHGraph, note that there are some changes too that I will commit sooner or later, mostly concerning the PHFunction, PHVectorField, PHParametricCurve classes to incorporate some of the work I put into TouchPlot.
Don't hesitate to subscribe to the PHGraph mailing list to discuss what you are doing right now. (This is a very quiet list...)
Pierre-Henri
iPhone beta instructsion
See also this post from an iPhone developer explaining how to set up a beta program, using the mechanism described by Pierre-Henri, thus probably relevant and helpful in some ways:
http://furbo.org/2008/08/06/beta-testing-on-iphone-20/
Using the dock connector?
Slightly different question:
I would like to get data into the ipod/iphone through a hard-wired path (for example the dock connector). I am building digitizers for geophysical instruments - and we have a small microcontroller that speaks to the A/D and then stores the A/D data to an SD card. The complications (and potential for corrupted data) is in maintaining a file system on the SD card (we have a FAT16 filesystem that the microcontroller maintains). A 2nd complication - more a hassle than anything - is downloading the data after the experiment is over. We have to pull the SD card put it in a card reader, etc... (not bad for a few, but when we get to 10s or hundreds, will become unmanageable)
1. The microcontroller isn't very powerful, but we could manage tcp/ip stack on there... could I use the ipod as a data logger for data coming from the microcontroller?
- The iphone OS has a nice file system...
- There is wireless connectivity that lets me pull those data out easily from the ipod/iphone later on...
- downside is higher power consumption, cost
2. Is there a serial port on the dock connector that is available through the SDK?
If the price comes down on the ipod, it would be competitive for my application... (particularly if we could ALSO access the battery to run our A/D board - but that might be asking too much!).
All these are random thoughts right now but if there are others out there who have thought more about this, I'd love to hear whether this is totally insane!
(the biggest roadblock is likely to be when I submit an invoice to my University's purchasing office to be reimbursed for buying an ipod touch!!! "Honestly, it's for science. Really!")
Cheers,
Sridhar
SDK access to hardware
Unfortunately, I believe the SDK does not give you any official access to the hardware. However, it is also possible that private APIs can be used, and will work on a non App Store app, e.g. following the above ad hoc distribution model. I don't know if the restrictions are enforced by Apple on the apps getting into the app store (by simply selecting out apps that use private APIs), or if they are enforced by the OS itself via sandboxing etc...
In any case, the SDK is still under NDA, which makes any further discussion illegal :-)
I am a student. I received
I am a student. I received an ipod touch for free when I purchased my macbook pro.
I am very interested in programming science related programs for my iPod touch while I am in college.
Im really not interested in paying 99 dollars a year for the iphone developer connection.
Perhaps if it were a one time fee.
If I buy 1 year of the iphone developer connection will my ability to publish applications on the iphone be revoked after the year if I don't keep paying them?
Apple wont even cut scientists a break?
Can I somehow contact apple and plead as a scientist and student?
unit conversion
I'm sure eventually, Apple will open up their SDK (or an alternative) to the public.
I'd like to see a quantum chemistry unit conversion app like this webpage:
http://www.colby.edu/chemistry/PChem/Hartree.html
can anybody with the SDK help me out? :-)
sound like a fun first
sound like a fun first project.
I wish I had the capability to publish iPhone apps.
iPhone Developer Connection and 99$
Hi!
You can register on Apple Developer Connection, it's free for the basic package. Then if you want to develop for the iPhone/iPodTouch you pay a 99$ one-time fee for developing on iPhone hardware (limit: 100 units) and distributing through the AppStore. If you intend to develop only on your iPhone unit, you won't need to distribute through the AppStore. For instance, I programmed a little application and I now use it on my iPhone.
iPhone / iPod Touch serial port access for RS232 serial cable
Hi,
There are several people working on a legitimate method to access the serial port on iPhone/iPod Touch. There is a rumor that some have been successful. Here is how I heard how to do it via the SDK:
*use the fopen call
*The device parameter is /dev/ttyS0 (or /dev/ttys000 or /dev/ttys001)
*Then, use fread and fwrite on the descriptor returned
Not clear how to change the serial port parameters.
I do believe if enough people are working on it, then one will be successful and then so many of us will benefit!!!
Ben Tabatowski-Bush
ECYPH LLC
www.pcables.com