Nearly four years ago, I wrote a blog piece about a smartphone application that I really wanted to see. How do you handle an important mobile phone call when you’re in a meeting, or in the audience at a show of some kind? Obviously your phone is set to vibrate only (isn’t it?!), but ideally you’d like to check the caller ID and either send the call to voicemail or answer it and ask the caller to wait while you leave the room, and do so completely silently. Smartphones all support rich media services, so all you need to be able to do is manage the telephony subsystem from within an application that can play back a pre-recorded “please hold” message.
Each time a vendor releases a smartphone SDK, I read the specs in hope, and each time I’m disappointed. This week Apple released the iPhone SDK, and I signed up and read the docs. Disappointed again: there’s still no access from applications to the telephony subsystem. Oh well: the iPhone is still a stunning device, the SDK has a ton of really cool features, and the developer tools are outstanding ((Watch the Apple video and check out the remote debugging and profiling features.)) , so I think I’m going to write a few apps for it. Of course this means I’ll finally have to break down and replace my PowerBook with a MacBook Pro; the tools all require an Intel-based Mac. Apple has some great refurbs at around $1,650 ((Less with my Amazon employee discount.)) for the 15″.