Portable Processor Display and much much more

[wb4jfi]

Albertson Chris wrote:
>>>
>> 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.
>
> My idea was really simply "why not find some mass produced device?  It 
> would be
> cheape and better built then anything you could make at home.  The 
> iPhone was an example.
> There are likely other devices.  Maybe Nokia or RIM makes somethiing 
> as good?
>
> Back to the iPhone, yes you have to buy in to get the app distributed 
> via Apple's app store but you can avoid paying two ways
> (1) The fee is "per organization" not per person.  So you join an open 
> source "club" that has already paid or
> (2) you distribute it informally any way you see fit.
> #1 is best because few iPhone users would know what to do with a .tar 
> file
>
> Also there is an effort to port a version of Linux to the iPhone.  
> That would over-write Apple's firmware and run on bare hardware but 
> this is still not ready for prime time.  I read it just booted and as 
> yet does not do much more than boot.
>
> Competing with iPhone is Google's "Android". Android is more open but 
> there is as yet not a lot of good hardware
>
>
Hmmm.
I Wonder if any of the amateur groups is already licensed to distribute 
iPhone apps via the app store.  Or, if decent apps were developed, 
perhaps AMRAD, or a similar club could become one of these open apps 
locations for amateur radio apps.

And maybe a $0.99 per-app charge would help offset the initial cost for 
the club.  We could wait to join the app store until the app was at 
least partially debugged.

I'd be willing to get an iTouch to play ham radio with, as long as that 
Apple distribution cost was not in my way.  I could put the iTouch and 
the development tools on another computer, so it would not mess up my 
regular iPhone.

I don't know about creating apps for other devices.  Once upon a time, I 
had development tools for Treos, but tht was over three years ago.  I 
assume Java is the language of choice for most of these devices.

Terry