First Third-party Native iPhone Application Released

An anonymous reader writes "A third-party native application for the iPhone is now available. Gizmodo discusses the real full-fledged iPhone application with a graphic user interface and its own icon in the iPhone home screen. It is not a Web 2.0 app but the real thing. What is it? Ironically enough, MobileTerminal, 'a terminal emulator application for the iPhone. MobileTerminal.app is NOT an SSH client, nor Telnet for that matter. It can however be used to execute a console ssh-client application.' The iPhone dev revolution has just started."

SWEET!

[AdmiralWeirdbeard (832807)]

...thats *totally* what I wanted to to with my multimedia smartphone!
Terminal!

Re:SWEET!

[Reverend528 (585549)]

There are lots of neat things that you could do from the terminal on a multimedia smartphone.

You can use it to pipe text messages to festival. Then it's like you're actually talking to the other person!

Re:

[Hes Nikke (237581)]

um... let me rewrite that for clarity:

don't forget that OS X (iPhone's OS) is derived from Mac OS X, which in itself has a pretty powerful TTS engine, that frankly sounds MUCH more human, though still not natural. i'd be kinda surprised if apple's TTS engine isn't already on the iPhone waiting to be used - especially since they've been putting some resources into it lately. [link [archive.org] - it's a shame they don't have the sample for alex posted anymore... you'll hear it in october!]

Re:SWEET!

[doxology (636469)]

At last, the iPhone has a decent interface!

Re:

[eean (177028)]

She get Maddox's [thebestpag...iverse.net] phone... they don't lock down the device.

Re:

[by Anonymous Coward]

I've heard of a couple potential SSH clients that would work on the iPhone.

WebShell [umich.edu] is a project that is geared specifically as an SSH client for the iPhone. The problem is that it requires installation on any server that you want SSH access to.

GotoSSH.com [gotossh.com] appears to provide web SSH access that would probably also work on the iPhone. It seems unique because it doesn't require any software installation on the SSH servers. I've found it handy since I can connect to some of my servers that are outside of my

Re:SWEET!

[lucifuge31337 (529072)]

It's beyond me how someone would switch carriers without trying out the service first. A $20 prepaid phone from RadioShack or similar comes with like $10 worth of airtime. Carry it around your normal places for a week. Try it first. It's really your own fault if you lost that kind of money because you aren't in a good enough service area - it's just not that hard to figure out before signing a 2-year contract, ESPECIALLY on a phone with a restocking fee.

Re:SWEET!

[dknj (441802)]

plus all cell phone providers are showing off their new 14 day try for free policy that the government mandated upon them a year or so ago.

oh you didn't know??

Re:

[smenor (905244)]

It's beyond me how someone would switch carriers without trying out the service first. A $20 prepaid phone from RadioShack or similar comes with like $10 worth of airtime.

Well... for starters, I wasn't even aware that that that was an option.

it's just not that hard to figure out before signing a 2-year contract

A 2 year contract... with a 2-week trial period (with which, I naively assumed I could - and follow me here - try the service).

It's really your own fault if you lost that kind of money because you aren't in a good enough service area

Yes, it is my fault. I fully admit that. I didn't read the contract in detail, I stupidly assumed that when AT&T's own site [att.com] said

Q. Do you have a special return policy for iPhones? A. Yes. Apple branded equipment is covered by a 14-day return policy and must be returned to the original point of purch

Network impact

[hypermanng (155858)]

Assuming Apple doesn't take steps in a subsequent update to actively disable third party applications, this could provide a channel for showing (or not) that third party applications doesn't automatically mean disruption of the provider network. Hopefully the inaugural apps will play nice, creating pressure on Apple to release an SDK to make it more likely that subsequent apps also play nice, rather than start patching it closed like a console. Apple has to respond, but they could go either way.

Re:

[earache (110979)]

It doesn't float. Blackberry's and Treo's have tons of third party apps.

I think apple wasn't ready for it yet, meaning they didn't have a polished sdk to give to developers.

telemarketers

[fangorious (1024903)]

I think the best use of this app would be to 'cat /dev/random > /dev/dsp' when a telemarketer calls.

Re:

[pjt33 (739471)]

Not /dev/random. You want to wait for a pause in the incoming sound wave and play samples of voice saying things like "Do go on" and "Could you run that past me again?"

Re:

[Achromatic1978 (916097)]

Because people in the civilised world don't pay for inbound calls?

Ultimate gaming platform?

[toleraen (831634)]

And finally, and most important, we can only hope that someone develops ScummVM and MAME, two game emulation platforms, soon. I want unlimited classic arcade games and Monkey Island in my iPhone.

I hope all those classic games can be played with a single button...cause that's all you're getting.

Re:

[CommunistHamster (949406)]

It's not called the "I WIN" button for nothing, you know...

Re:Ultimate gaming platform?

[Reason58 (775044)]

I hope all those classic games can be played with a single button...cause that's all you're getting.

Every SCUMM-based game uses the left mouse button only. As for the MAME stuff, that varies from game to game.

Re:

[Mia'cova (691309)]

I get that you're making a joke but I may as well for those who don't have one.. There are four buttons on the phone itself and another on the headphones. You've also got all the accessories and bluetooth. Depending how deep the hackers get in there, we might see something like the PS3 controller connecting to the phone. OSX can be made to support something like that. I'm still from the "just buy a psp/ds" camp but I still love creative hacks. Games are clearly not what I care about (compared to say, a skyp

PSPhone DS

[theolein (316044)]

I recently saw an ad for an embedded game developer.... by apple. Requiring many years of experience etc yadda yadda yadda.

Here's the apple game dev ad [highendcareers.com].

This speaks legions to me, and it says Apple is not only going to turn the iPhone into a a cool smartphone, but they will also start selling games with it. IT has enough horsepower and screen real estate to take on the PSP..... and the DS, with the multi touch interface.

If it works and sells, Sony is going to shit big square bricks, Steve Ballmer is single handedly going to cause a world chair shortage, and Nintendo is going to be most challenged. Anything you can do with the DS, you can do with the iPhone.

Most, most interesting.

Re:

[huckamania (533052)]

That is going to be one busy developer. They are going to have to keep him stocked with snickers bars and jolt cola.

Re:

[richy freeway (623503)]

Anything you can do with the DS, you can do with the iPhone.

Except play brain training, or nintendogs, or pokemon, or new super mario bros, or have it cost you (and I mean the average person who can't hack it, and even if you can it's still gonna cost you £250+) less than £100.

The iPhone is a flashy gadget, it's not a games console and it won't ever be.

Ever.

Re:

[Von Helmet (727753)]

Anything you can do with the DS, you can do with the iPhone.

Apart from use a stylus [wikipedia.org]. That's going to be quite a deal breaker, given that a lot of DS games require precise touches, which can't really be achieved with even the daintiest of fingertips. I don't think the whole touch thing is likely to work that well when you move from the few-pixels precision of the stylus on the DS to a big fat finger on the iPhone.

Re:

[MorpheousMarty (1094907)]

I am not a Nintendo fanboy, however you don't seem to understand the full lack of challenge ANYONE has brought to the Nintendo on the portable front. I heard at the peak of the last console wars they still sold a Gameboy for every PS2, Gamecube and Xbox sold, and that Pokemon accounted for 50% of all video games sales. But even if that weren't true, it's pretty clear that the DS currently is the most successful [arstechnica.com] console, by a wide margin. I doubt anything but the most concentrated effort could take on Ninten

Re:

[dave420 (699308)]

Apart from use a d-pad, A, B, X, Y, and shoulder buttons. And a stylus. So no, you can't do everything you can do on a DS on an iPhone. Not even close.

Whoa there boy...

[GarfBond (565331)]

Let's not make too many big leaps of logic...

Second, if Google Code is hosting this it probably means either that 1) Apple is giving the nod to this kind of development, 2) they are going to release an SDK or 3) Apple will realize the need for people to access the iPhone as a development platform to do really cool stuff with it. All three options are good for me.

Or, maybe it's anyone can create a project [google.com] there.

1 and 2 are ridiculous claims based off of this information, and I'm pretty sure they were already aware of #3 based off of the grumbling developers and blogs after WWDC.

Re:

[nutshell42 (557890)]

Apple fanboys are like people in an abusive relationship, they will interpret everything as a sign that Steve still does love them even while he's beating them with a belt (but it's not His fault! Of course, He's angry! If only they'd bought new Macs every 2 years like Windows users...)

Oh don't you love the smell of burnt karma in the morning =)

Google's offering.

[delire (809063)]

I wonder if Google will give us a shell on their new Linux phone [blogspot.com].

That said it'll be hard for them to beat the Phase 2 OpenMoko [openmoko.org] for developer fun.

Re:IPhone Revolution?

[sokoban (142301)]

Spare me. OpenMoko is an open platform that nobody cares about.

It does look cool, but without an Apple sized hype-machine and good support from cell phone companies and service providers I don't see it taking off.

Re:IPhone Revolution?

[DaleGlass (1068434)]

Nobody cares about the iPhone as a platform either.

With no official SDK who is going to make applications for it? Maybe a couple of geeks happy to mess with something that's not documented and for which there's absolutely zero support from the vendor, but nobody of much importance. They'll have exactly the same problem you say OpenMoko has: That very few people will ever hear that something can be installed into an iPhone, and fewer yet will install something.

Installing applications will probably not be just a matter of point and click on a standard phone either.

The iPhone has an SDK

[by Anonymous Coward]

It's called HTML+CSS+JS.

I don't care for the iPhone, myself -- another closed proprietary system? I'll wait for OpenMoko.

But you kind of have to give them credit for one thing. If they had released an iPhone-only SDK, you'd see iPhone-only apps. By not releasing any SDK, and by releasing a real web browser for it, people are writing web apps designed for mobile devices [colloquy.info]. Which means they're not really tied to the iPhone.

I think that's kind of cool, actually.

Re:

[dave420 (699308)]

You're not everyone. Many, many folks want to run their own choice of applications on their phone. Having unmetered internet access, and not being able to use it for anything other than surfing the web and email (which is just one portion of the internet) seems like one hell of a waste. If what you said was true, then other companies would have been down that route a long time ago. As it is, they saw the benefit of allowing users to run whatever they wanted on their phone, be it a whole host of applicat

Re:

[Mattsson (105422)]

Installing applications will probably not be just a matter of point and click on a standard phone either.

Installing third party software is a matter of point and click on a standard phone, if you haven't got an old relic of a phone that doesn't support MIDP [sun.com].

It goes like this:
1. Use standard broser to download an application you like, for instance Wayfinder Earth [wayfinder.com] or Opera Mini [operamini.com]
2. Copy the application to your SD or MS-card, if your phone support those, or connect your phone to your pc via USB, IR, Bluetooth or serial and install it using the application-installer supplied by the producer of your phone, whatever

Beg to differ

[SuperKendall (25149)]

Nobody cares about the iPhone as a platform either....
With no official SDK who is going to make applications for it?

Well all these [modmyiphone.com] people care enough about it as a platform to write what apps they can using the browser as SDK.

One of them in particular, is Popcap with the well known game bejewled.

Now you might say, that doesn't count because it's "just" a browser based app. But all of the applications listed there have been tailored to fit and work well on the iPhone. Most of the even use fragments of cust

Re:Beg to differ

[Achromatic1978 (916097)]

Now you might say, that doesn't count because it's "just" a browser based app. But all of the applications listed there have been tailored to fit and work well on the iPhone. Most of the even use fragments of custom CSS that helps define the appearance for the iPhone specifically. If it's tailored to the platform, then how is using the browser as a GUI library really that much different than a true native app as far as the intent of the developer, and interaction by the user? There are even proof of concept web-based apps that detect phone rotation and respond accordingly...

It's fantastic. For years, I've heard Mac fans (amongst others, sure) moan loudly about web standards. Browser independence. Railing against websites that discriminate against Safari. That are "best viewed in IE".

Now, there's the iPhone. And suddenly coding HTML and CSS to meet the needs of one device / browser combination is apparently A-ok, because it's their device. I see.

Re:

[mechanyx (960689)]

I want a phone running OpenMoko so that I can do the following things:

1) automatically check unknown numbers against whocalled.us type telemarketer lists
2) log ALL calls - especially useful to see how many times ppl from 1) have called you if you set it up to show while ringing
3) *MY* ringtones - they don't sell Wagner, Scriabin, Schnittke or death metal on those services - not that I'd want to pay for music I already own.
4) ringback tones
5) advanced blacklisting functionality
6) the ability to have my phone

Re:

[ivan256 (17499)]

Except that the full featured handset doesn't even exist yet, and the half-baked one you can actually get doesn't work (at least according to their own website):

"Currently it is not suitable for users. The state of the software at the moment is pre-alpha. If you order a Neo1973, DO NOT expect to be able to use it as an everyday phone."

Nice "phone" you've got there.

Re:Revolution?

[AdmiralWeirdbeard (832807)]

Heretic! All shall bow before the iChurch...

Re:

[xeoron (639412)]

Send him to the food bank to feed the gigashadow!

Re:Revolution?

[soft_guy (534437)]

Your post is so original and insightful that I'm sure legions of people are now saying "Gee, I need to rethink my relationship to apple."

You have answered the age old quesiton: do you want to post to slashdot, or do you want to CHANGE THE WORLD??? Well, I think in this post you have clearly accomplished both.

Re:Revolution?

[by Anonymous Coward]

Uh, like, did you not notice the iPhone has only 3 physical buttons and one control surface, whereas every other smartphone is littered with buttons? Did you not notice the relatively huge screen for such a pocketable device? Did you not notice the lack of a stylus? Did you not notice that the UI morphs to meet the needs of the current task? Did you not notice the use of gestures to control the device and the use of visual feedback? Did you not notice how the user interacts via a built-in accelerometer? Did you not notice the visual voice mail? Did you not notice the accurate rendering of web pages using the built-in browser, and the equally accurate rendering of HTML e-mail? Did you not notice how easy it is to pan and zoom?

Oh, sorry, I didn't realize you were blind.

Functional

[SuperKendall (25149)]

Tell me again why this is a revolution? The iPhone is a pretty cool toy

No, the iPhone is a really functional device that sucks a lot less than so many other phones, and fans of dynamic symbolic UI finally have a device that doesn't wimp out in presenting us with a virtual interface. Plus the screen DPI is so high it actually makes reading really small text practical so the screen is much more usable than you would think only from looking at the size in specs.

Furthermore it's also a device with a huge amount of potential, in part from Apple but also in part from hacking. And as we have seen with the Apple TV and other devices, Apple devices are generally hackable and Apple doesn't push back the way Sony or Nintendo or Microsoft do.

I don't quite know if revolution is the right word either, but it sure is a breath of fresh air in a world that until now has been a fetid swamp.

Re:

[mrchaotica (681592)]

Yeah, well they fixed that in newer Macs (and by "newer" I mean in the early 90's with OpenFirmware, not 2006 with the Intel switch).

Re:

[Phroggy (441)]

Yeah, well they fixed that in newer Macs (and by "newer" I mean in the early 90's with OpenFirmware, not 2006 with the Intel switch).

*ahem* First of all, I wouldn't call 1995 "early 90s" (the PowerMac 6200 was the first Mac to ship with OpenFirmware, and was introduced in May of that year). Secondly, I wouldn't call the problem "fixed" on Old World Macs - it wasn't until the release of the iMac in August 1998 that it became simple and easy to boot operating systems other than Mac OS.

Re:

[SuperKendall (25149)]

You don't consider the fact you CAN run NetBSD on the SE/30 an indication of hackability, even on hardware older than most people who read Slashdot?

Re:Revolution?

[djh101010 (656795)]

Tell me again why this is a revolution? The iPhone is a pretty cool toy, but remind me what's revolutionary about it? Folks, Apple is a company that makes neat products. It's not a club or a religion.

Well for starters, you're doing that whole "pretend to be speaking for the opposition" thing which, sorry, you're not. It's a great device that does everything it does very well. Yes, I could do pretty much everything this thing does with my Treo but, the iPhone does it all with a more logical, consistent GUI, well thought out process flow, and all sorts of other things that people who merely tick off a features list will miss the value of. It's the same old story - people who want a car to get from home to work won't understand why (insert brand name here) is a nicer car, while those who have said car value the differences that the other person does not.

That said, a terminal app on my iPhone? Are you kidding? Hell yes, I'll set it up. It's not so much that it gives me a command line interface, it's that it gives me access to the Unix system in my pocket. Again, if you don't value that and don't get it, it's _fine_, really, but that doesn't mean it's without value to those who understand the value of such a thing.

Re:

[Sparr0 (451780)]

The iPhone is everything the Nokia 770 could have been... if Nokia had the brains to *PUT A PHONE IN IT*.

PS: Yes, I got a 770 in the recent mass discounting craze. Yes, I love it. Yes, I use it for VOIP over EDGE... making it a phone.

Re:Revolution?

[tunesmith (136392)]

For me, it's a revolution just because it's the first product that has reached a critical mass point to make me less likely to use my laptop. I make my living from my laptop, and I'm kind of anchored to it, which affects my daily lifestyle. The iPhone reduces my need to open my laptop by about 60%. This changes my lifestyle dramatically. It's actually a bit traumatic (in a positive sense) and I haven't completely adjusted to it. I'm actually considering traveling more, taking more working vacations, taking up running... I don't know, it's like it has made *me* more portable without me having to discipline myself to be as such. The impact is difficult to measure.

Re:

[LKM (227954)]

Of course Apple isn't a club or religion. That doesn't mean that making a phone which is targeted at end users rather than at carriers isn't at least a tiny bit revolutionary - not to mention that it's the first consumer-level device that comes with a multitouch screen :-)

Re:problems with it ...

[Space cowboy (13680)]

You've almost certainly not set the application file within the Terminal.app bundle to be executable once it's been transferred. Just like FTP, iphoneinterface always sets permissions to rw-r--r--

Simon

Re:What does it do?

[SanityInAnarchy (655584)]

Well, it's called MobileTerminal.app, and the iPhone runs a Darwin kernel. So, just guessing, but it would seem to be a mobile version of Terminal.app on normal OS X.

Meaning, it's "a console window for the iPhone's operating system", yes.

Which also means that if the iPhone had a serial port, you could talk to that with MobileTerminal. Or if you want SSH or Telnet, those clients will run in MobileTerminal.