Comment by David | December 3, 2007 | 10:54 am

A rather obscure feature request. Any chance you could add a - t (toggle) parameter to autosnap? If you did, I could easily create a Springboard app to turn it on or off with just 1 click. (I can already turn it ON that way, but not off).

Thanks for all you do!

Comment by Erica Sadun | December 3, 2007 | 11:12 am

The problem is that autosnap is running until you kill it. Maybe I could figure out a way to have it run as a launch daemon and control it with UIctl. Hmmm.

Comment by Erica Sadun | December 3, 2007 | 11:25 am

Launch Daemon is here:

http://ericasadun.com/ftp/EricaUtilities/com.sadun.autosnap

Shaun is working with me to try to get it packaged into the Erica Utilities.

Comment by wildonrio | December 3, 2007 | 11:52 am

Erica,

As far as picking a 30 second clip, maybe at first you could do something really primitive like an option to only import the first 30 seconds of the ringtone, or an option to specifiy from what time to what time in the song you want the ringtone to be. Then users could just get those start and stop times by listening to the song somewhere else, you know? If this happens your program would become the perfect alternative to iTunes ringtones, especially since it’s free and you can do it right from the phone.

Thanks for your hard work.

Comment by WiFone | December 3, 2007 | 12:43 pm

I installed EricaUtilities 0.52 including the new autosnap Launch Daemon (I put it in /Library/LaunchDaemons and gave it 755 permissions), but it was not working on my system. My iPhone refused to start up afterwards - hanging at a black screen. Fortunately I still had OpenSSH running, and was able to connect to my iPhone and remove it again. Then I reset the iPhone by holding home button + power button, and it rebooted properly again.

Any ideas what I did wrong?

Comment by Erica Sadun | December 3, 2007 | 12:47 pm

First of all, you only need 644, not 755. Second, it shouldn’t autostart–you should have to enable it with UIctl. Third–omg omg, that’s AWFUL.

Comment by jait | December 3, 2007 | 12:54 pm

i did a little bit of trying to get a DDNS client going, real basic stuff. My hoster just requires an authenticated POST with the different host/ip information. curl from the shell worked with no problem. I didn’t do much with it after that. I think my original idea was to have an apache session active where ever I was. Real world things like firewalls and NAT rules kind of stopped that.

Comment by David | December 3, 2007 | 1:27 pm

Erica, thanks so much. I am now able to add autosnap as a service with iToggle, which makes getting screenshots onto my Mac a snap!

Comment by scottchr | December 3, 2007 | 2:38 pm

Any chance of getting your alarm program packaged with a GUI? I’d love to be able to quickly and easily set an alarm that will play some music, not ringtones! It’s still beyond me why the phone can’t do this from the box.

Thanks!

Comment by Tinman | December 3, 2007 | 2:46 pm

Erica,

Regarding XLaunch and not allowing XLaunch’s icon to be moved: why not just check for the presence of 1.1.1+ and patched Springboard? If so allow it to be moved.

I liked using XLaunch but not enough to give it non-negotiable seating on my Springboard. ^_^

Had to go back to Customize, which makes me a wee bit nervous (due to past experience).

–
Mike

Comment by svenbox | December 3, 2007 | 3:01 pm

Erica, I wonder how hard it would be to make a recorder for phone calls, now that you’ve made VNotes?

Comment by WiFone | December 3, 2007 | 3:41 pm

Good suggestion, svenbox! Recording phone calls would be sweet indeed!

On a side note: it may be illegal (in several jurisdictions) to record phone calls without explicitly informing the other party about the call being recorded. Still, that shouldn’t stop anyone from developing and making available the tools to do so (just like plain old tape recorders are legal anywhere afaik - save perhaps some territories still under Taliban rule).

Comment by Erica Sadun | December 3, 2007 | 3:46 pm

I cannot record phone calls at this time. When the telephony library kicks in, the celestial library closes down.

Comment by derek | December 3, 2007 | 3:51 pm

Erica –

First-time caller, long-time listener.

I love your picSnap application, but the files end up being rather large. I see that there are a number of objects/structures in the iPhone headers pointing to the ability to grab lower-resolution images, even thumbnails — would it take much to add a command-line argument that would offer up at least one smaller size option?

I’ll take my answer off-the-air. Thanks!

Derek

Comment by skillllz | December 4, 2007 | 4:11 pm

Erica i have been wanting to talk to you about adding a toggle switch to the JohnTool application. I find it very useful and if your not willing to do it i would be willing to give it a shot. You can view my e-mail in my account on your wordpress site and i would appreciate it if you could send me an e-mail so we can talk about this (considering i have no other way of contacting you other then comments).

Thanks!

- Andy

Comment by tommy | December 4, 2007 | 6:47 pm

hi, first time commenting, tried finding some way of contacting you but this must be the only means
got into your writing through Nik (from tuaw)
and would like to submit a (relatively simple?) request for a program, as I know that many things you do use the iPhones accelerometer, would it be possible to have a simple app that would have a ‘Spirit level’ just to be able to establish the straightness of a surface (i’m an architecture student and it would come in handy!)
thanks
tomek

Comment by macdo | December 4, 2007 | 9:00 pm

Hi Erica, first of all congrats about all your work!
I don’t know if I’ve already posted this kind of request…here’s my shot:
I’m thinking in some app that help us to clean our Springboard. I know tha rSbt can hide apps and then we can launch them with Launcher.
It would be very interesting that we can make apps categories like: Games, Utils, SMS, Misc…etc., and then include insede each category the apps we want.
What do you think, do you like the idea, do you think it’s possible?

Best Regards & Keep going,
macdo

Comment by karups | December 5, 2007 | 1:34 am

Erica, Last night I did an extensive testing on VRecord and here are some of my observations.

1. Should not lock the screen — Already added it to the issues list.

2. To avoid auto locking, I was just touching the screen then and there - Results in crash - Meaning, the phone restarted automatically (had the Apple logo alone with black bg like the one we see when we start the phone)

3. But the recording has not stopped and I had to stop it by touching “Finish Recording”

4. After we do a long recording like 5 minutes (let the phone lock the screen and once you are done with the recording unlock and touch “Finish Recording”) the output file’s playback has so many pauses (should I call it as breaks ) in between.

5. As this is an audio application, it should have the capability of running in the bg but it does not. For example, we should be able to record a conversation. But the application exists when we go to a different application or Home.

Following are Usablity Issues:

6.Currently we are having two different messages in the screen while recording.
“You Are Recording” and “Finish Recording”. To me it should not be that way. A simple “Stop” would make more sense.

7.” Edit” button should be disabled (shown in different color) or should be hidden when there are no items to edit.

8. And when we are in Edit screen and there are no items (assume all the items present previously have been deleted) the application should not expect the user to press “Done”. Application itself should return to its Home (VRecord’s home scree).

Finally,
Thanks a lot for all your works.

Cheers.

Comment by tommy | December 5, 2007 | 3:28 am

i’d like a follow up on point 5 from karups list, it would be so convenient to be able to record conversations

Comment by Erica Sadun | December 5, 2007 | 11:23 am

Conversation recording is a no-go for now. Celestial, the recording framework, cuts out when Telephony cuts in.

I’d like to see folders and app categories as well but I’m not entirely sure how to do so well and easily. It’s on my to-do list.

Comment by filmlover99 | December 5, 2007 | 12:52 pm

I have no idea if this is the right place for this but I have some ideas and you seem like the smartest iphone genius I can think of, so I’ll post it here. I’m curious if anyone else see’s the benefit.

So hear is an iPhone app idea I certainly wished existed.

Something that almost seems like a slight oversight on the iPhone
presents an intersting string of possibilities.

The iPhone is first and foremost pointed at people who love their iPod
and music so much they want those functions on their phone. And many
have probably realized that you can actually turn on and listen to
your iPod music WHILE you are simultaneously connected on the phone.

That’s pretty darn cool but seems like an oversight because you can
not “mix” the volume level between the two to a point where the iPod
audio output would function as background music, or perhaps
intentionally mix your music over the phones audio output because you
are on a long hold.

As well, your party on the other end cannot hear what you are playing.

Basicly the volume just takes everything your hearing up ur down,
usually completely overwhelming the phone call.

(iPhone application idea coming now)

So an “imix-hijack” iPhone app would:
Allow you to mix the level of your iPod output and iphone output to
tweak a perfect mix of the two sources.

This tweak mixing could also apply to music while playing games as well.

Perhaps with earbuds on, the handset mic could be a directional audio
source to mix in the local sounds, like someone next to you trying to
get you to hear them. If you could mix them up, you wouldn’t have to
grab your buds out of your ears all the time.

The next great feature of an iPhone-imix hijack would be to share the
music listening with your incoming callers.

Now I realize that first the Walkman and then the iPod made a big part
of music an “I”ndependent listening experience, but for the most part,
teenagers, college students, music lovers and professionals, are
really about listening with someone else.

Who with an iPhone would not like to have the option of saying “Hey-
listen to this” and be able to listen to the current playing audio
together.

Next in this suite of audio mix operations: hold music! With the 3way
conferencing and call waiting features so gracefully implemented in
the iphone as call adding and merging, callers are being put on hold
all the time.

How about the current playing song is the hold music while waiting for
a caller to come back from a call waiting, or during an outgoing add a
call. That’s how a landline conference call would work.

Finally a setting that would either allow mixed music to play through
the answer of a call or not, in case it’s your boss, a client, or your
inlaws.

Ok- so this stuff may seem frivolous, but music is entertainment. When
your friends come over you put some music on, and enjoy it together.

Many workplaces have music playing all day, and thousands of iPod
owners everyday wear their earbuds and speak to people while listening
to music the other party doesn’t hear.

Just to review:

Level mix multiple audio sources such as phone and iPod simultaneously.

Allow music to play over outgoing phone call to share a listening
experience.

Be able to turn that feature on or off.

Mix up handset mic to hear the world.

Have hold music!

This idea keeps popping into my head, and I really needed to tell
someone who might be able to do something with it. I hope you can take
a moment and let me know what you think!

Maybe your interest will peak and it will seem like something worth
trying to build. If you know other developers that might think this is
a good idea let me know - I’d love to submit this to interested
parties. Mainly, I’d just like my iPhone to have this capability-

Thanks for your time!

Comment by macdo | December 5, 2007 | 8:20 pm

I think it’s a mix between these apps:

rSBT: capable to organize and hide apps. So if you include one app into a category, it disappears from springboard.

Launcher: reads all installed apps and then starts the selected one.

Suppose we have only 2 categories, so we have 2 icons in the springboard.
When you open on of them it could retrieve some info from our “rSBT” and then only display the selected apps.

I know is easy to say and hard to do it…but I’m trying help…

Best Regards,
macdo

Comment by WiFone | December 6, 2007 | 12:03 pm

@ tommy / tomek:

There are actually already 2 apps that do exactly what you want:
(1) iLevel, from (my fellow Dutchmen) Robota Software, and
(2) Level, from iApp-a-Day (Sean Heber).

The sources (for Installer.app) are:
http://iphone.robota.nl/
and
http://www.iappaday.com/install/

Personally, I like #2 best, but I like #1’s icon much better. So what I did is: install both, copy the icon from (1) to (2) (using OpenSSH / WinSCP), and uninstall #1.

Comment by notech5000 | December 7, 2007 | 8:13 pm

Had a paranoid inspiration about the iPhone…

First, I wanted to say thanks for all the iPhone development and journalism that you’ve done.

Thanks in large part to your efforts, I am basically in iPhone Nirvana right now:

1.1.1
iTMS
ssh
terminal
PDF reader
vNotes
PREAMP! ( I think it sounds louder)
iRadio + kexp.org feed using mvnplay
AFP & Mobile FInder!!!
AFP & Mobile Finder!!!!!!!!
Full access to entire Powerbook Music folder (40+ GB) using “ln -s” to music folder / Personal Web Sharing on Powerbook.
Save mp3 using History DL
Play above w/ Sendfile
On the fly add above to iPod DB using mvnplay!!
all the regular stuff…

Here’s what I think we need (besides a full bluetooth profile!) –> a Little Snitch / Firewall app to do 2 things:
(1) I am worried about a surprise over-the-air bricking / update (seems very possible)
(2) Would also address the “million+ zombie rootkit’d unix box” nightmare scenario (alpine? dottie?)

What do you think?

Thanks again.

Happy Holidays.

Regards.
notech5000

Pingback by a crick in the net » Blog Archive » No Jabber on iPhone | December 10, 2007 | 2:53 pm

[…] could mean something is wrong with libpurple. ref: This and this, from Erica Sadun, although there’s a difference between going outside of somethings design […]

Comment by josh | December 17, 2007 | 8:06 am

hi erica. since Bluetooth gps modules are readily available (and fairly inexpensive) I’d love to see an app which would read longitude and latitude data via Bluetooth from one of these modules and pass it to google maps on my iphone.

Comment by josh | December 17, 2007 | 8:08 am

ps - I’m in new york and have yet to get navizon to actually work for me.

Comment by PC | December 20, 2007 | 12:43 am

Hi Erica,

You should set up a suggestion board for these feature requests. http://www.fevote.com/ - might help a bit

There’s a board for the iPhone btw… http://www.fevote.com/apple/iphone

Thanks for all your work. I love your apps.

Comment by distortedloop | December 21, 2007 | 1:20 pm

Erica -

I’d love to have an icon on the springboard that lets me launch a phone call to AT&T’s VoiceDial service. The hyperlink url trick of tel:*08 doesn’t work.

There’s some kind of launcher someplace because Settings/Phone/AT&T Services/Voice Connect lets you launch the phone and dial *08 automatically, but poking around in the iPhones various folders it eluded my meager skills.

Any ideas? Or maybe add to your “request list”.

Comment by 123 | December 25, 2007 | 9:28 pm

how about sumthing to record video

kinda of suck that iphone don;t have it

be nice if u can pull it togtether

Comment by ripped53 | January 13, 2008 | 9:16 am

Thank you Erica for all of your hard work and time thus far. I have what I think is a simple request. Would you be able to offer an app or program that allows changing calendar alerts, or at least getting it to vibrate multiple times until acknowledged? The current single vibration that occurs is hardly enough to catch my attention when the phone is on silent. Thank you.

Comment by hourog | February 3, 2008 | 5:07 pm

Hi Erica,

I use my iPod touch as a replacement for a laptop when I travel. It’s worked surprisingly well.

The one big drawback is the interface with the contact app.

With over a 1000 contacts in my database, very often it’s tough to find the person I need using only the First_name, Last_name parameters.

Is it possible top do a routine which would enable a search of the contacts using alternate fields, i.e. city, state, phone, company name?

Thanks.

Comment by rodeo | May 27, 2008 | 6:38 am

Hi Erica,

my iPhone’s lower touch strip is dead.

I’m wondering if anything like a software recalibration tool is doable.

If I could only ‘recalibrate’ the screen so that the lower touch zone is a little bit higher, it would save me fof buying a new screen.
Do you think it’s possible to do it?

Thanks
Rudi