Portable Processor Display and much much more

[wb4jfi]

Frank Gentges wrote:
> tacoistas,
>
> While we ponder the future work on the Charleston receiver and all 
> that stuff....
>
> Chris Albertson posted a nice idea for a processor development system 
> on the Softrock40 newsgroup.  Rather than trying to reword it all, I 
> have copied a portion below.
>
> Chris has been CC:ed and hope he drops by AMRAD.org to see what we are 
> doing.
>
> This is from Chris Albertson
> Redondo Beach, California
>
> Quote
> Have you seen Apple's iPhone or iPod Touch? ~500Mhz ARM processor and
> a fast GPU. The GPU can be used for numeric or DSP crunching. It has
> audio in and out and a nice built-in display and battery.
>
> Apple provides a truly huge set of development tools for free and even
> gives you a simulator so you can do most of the development work
> without needing a real iPod. There are thousands of examples of
> complex software that runs on the iPhone/iPod. Also, it is very easy
> to learn how to program on one of these. Training is available in
> books, on-line videos and 100 other ways.
>
> You can buy an iPod touch for $199 and when you are not doing SDR with
> it you can listen to music or read your email.
>
> I doubt you could connect a DSP eval board to a battery and LCD
> display and housing for $199 and if you did I doubt it would fit in a 
> shirt pocket.
> Unquote
>
> Not bad for the price.  How do we hack an SDR front end into one?
>
> Frank K0BRA
> _______________________________________________
> Tacos mailing list
> Tacos at amrad.org
> http://www.amrad.org/mailman/listinfo/tacos
>
>
Frank, et al:

I looked at building an iPhone app last year, after getting a 
first-generation iPhone.  While downloading (and registering for) the 
Apple development tools is indeed free, which I have done, I understand 
it costs money to distribute an app via the iTunes library system.  
Also, iTunes is the only way to distribute iPhones apps.  I believe that 
I was told that it costs $200 to be able to distribute via iTunes.

If that's the case, I don't think I'm willing to spend the time to 
develop a free SDR app, but have Apple making money off my hard work 
merely to distribute it.  Maybe others feel differently.

Also, from what I've heard, the iPhone is becoming harder to work with, 
and I know that each time iTunes is updated, it causes me no end of 
grief.  Two weeks ago, they updated my Windows computer to iTunes v9.00, 
and it took me over a week to get it running on the computer again.  
Plus, it totally hosed up the computer (a three-year-old Dell XP400), 
and took four calls to Apple support over that week to fix.  Just in 
time for my last trip.

Now, Apple has released iTunes 9.01 today, and I'm scared to upgrade again.

I LOVE my iPhone.  I don't like the Apple distribution model, or their 
flaky Windows programs AT ALL.  But, that's just me (and a lot of other 
angry people on the net).  Maybe Apple computers work better....

Terry
WB4JFI