iPhone ideas

This post comes a bit late but… I’ve managed to publish the mac version of my PastefireClient app. This version comes in the form of a system service and a preference pane to insert your pastefire.com credentials.

It’s system service to send content (text, phone numbers, addresses, URLs) to the PasteFire App on your iPhone.

Once installed the service is present in the Services menu of all the Cocoa applications and in all context menu where a text is selected (see image).
There is a default shortcut associated with the service (Ctrl + Shift + Command + V – yes, I know, you need 4 fingers to press it…).
To be sure that the service is recognized by applications you may have to quit and reopen applications that was already opened when you installed it. A logout/login could be the best way to make the system recognize the service.

You can also change the shortcut associated with the service (the default is Ctrl + Shift + Command + V) going into the Keyboard Preferences -> Keyboard Shortcuts and selecting Services from the left column, in the right column, scrolling, you’ll get to the “Send to PasteFire” service.
The strange choice of the default shortcut is made to not conflict with common applications (Safari, TextEdit, Finder…).

To remove the PasteFire Preference panel you can right click on the icon in SystemPreferences and choose to remove it; remember to first uninstall the service.

You can find additional information on the sourceforge project page: http://pastefireclient.sourceforge.net/pastefireservice.html

Note: the service does not work in Google Chrome and the reason is that at this moment system services are not implemented by it….

I think that it could be possible to implement gestures in the home screens of the iPhone (I lack the handy shortcuts of Nokia phones, up, down, left, right for creating a new message, see last calls… etc…).

You could use two finger swipes (up, down, left, right) to do this kind of things (maybe a panel to configure these actions could also be useful…). Perhaps also a three finger swipe could make it.

[updated]

You could link the swipes to several common action or to launch 3rd party apps or custom urls (to use special url schemas)

I’ve put together a Windows client for the PasteFire app (http://getap.ps/pastefire). It’s an open source project host on SourceForge (http://sourceforge.net/project/pastefireclient).

For now there is only the Windows version… soon there will be also a Mac OSX version (in the form of a system service).

It resolves the problem of sending bits of text to your iPhone/iPod touch… just use an hotkey (default is WIN+V key).

Every kind of feedback is appreciated.

You can see also the web site of the app for more information: https://pastefire.com

I was thinking about multitouch and its present use that is made of it in the iPhone…

My opinion is that multitouch as it is used now is like playing a piano with only one finger… There are many possibilities of gesture and only a few of them are used (pinch for example)… I think that the thing will evolve when a device with a much bigger screen be available (Mac Tablet ?). On an iPhone screen is impractical to use more than two finger… you cover too much content and you don’t see what you are doing…

Another issue will be to standardize gestures… or how to let users be acquainted with them…
Having a bigger screen could permit to use fingers from both hands even if from an ergonomic perspective you have to solve the problem of holding the device in your hands… (Double side multitouch input with trasparent overlay on screen of your fingers position?)

Hope we will soon see something really new from Apple…