IPhone and Open GL

igor

i dont know if you really can run SU on the new iphone, but if you could it would probably be really annoying to use anyway. that would be for the serious SU addict, who cant go more than two hours with out using SU. (you know you're an SU addict when... you use SU on your iphone so that you can use SU when and where ever you want)

sorry if the above describes you, but thats just my view on the matter.

bellwells

Good point. No, I'm not an addict; I just love the product. I guess without a mouse it would be difficult.....unless some programmer could find a way to use the accelerometer in the iPhone in combination with pressing a key to manipulate a SU model. Or use the touch screen..... Hmmmmm.

I understand Apple's software development kit is robust enough to probably do this. I can't imagine actually creating a model, only viewing, orbiting, etc.

remus

I tihnk itd be good fun personally, of course youd never be able to create a great masterpiece on it, but i reckon youd probably be good to do small things on it.

Pretty much, itd probably be a gimmick, but whats wrong with a gimmick?

monsterzero

But you know what would be cool? Showing your models in 3D on your phone. I have renders on my phone to show people what I do, but if you could navigate your model/scene on the phone that would be pretty interesting to have.

tbd

it all depends on how much work Google wants to do
openGL ES, which is used on mobiles, is a bit different than openGL we use on desktops, so it needs some work for a port.

... but a model viewer would be nice (and not that much work compared to SU port)

bellwells

Or...utilize a program like "Go To My PC" to access your home computer. From there, you could open any model and display/manipulate it.

plot-paris

perfect would be the other way arround: not a SketchUp version for the iPhone...

an iPhone version for SketchUp! - with a 24" widescreen display!

although recieving a call would be rather difficult

igor

@ plot paris

i think the idea of only dispaying and not creating you model on the phone is a great idea. like use one finger on the screen to orbit and two fingers moving together to pan and the ususal "pinching" manuver to zoom. that could work. some one go tell apple.

remus

If youve got 50 quid/100 dollars spare you can have a go at it yourself, with the iphone SDK.

dylan

Well I have ordered one of the new phones anyway now the price of these new 3G ones have dropped so much. I think it is a fantastic piece of kit

plot-paris

@plot-paris said:

an iPhone version for SketchUp! - with a 24" widescreen display!

apple may not have focused on the huge market of SketchUp Pro users yet - but it is only a matter of time...
first ideas about the size of the new iSketch tablet-pc

pav_3j

@unknownuser said:

Well I have ordered one of the new phones anyway now the price of these new 3G ones have dropped so much. I think it is a fantastic piece of kit

juat ordered mine too.

i knew it was a good idea to wait and see what the second gen iphone was like, i currently have an o2 xda orbit, and the iphone couldn't really come close to that as it has gps, but now the iphone has gps, and the price has dropped, i just can't justify not getting one!

pav

Alan Fraser

Mmm! Still nothing like enough to tempt me away from my BlackBerry Curve. WiFi is fine...but only if you are always within range. At present, I can pick up an email, Gtalk, text or surf the Net unlimited virtually anywhere....certainly when I'm nowhere near any WiFi hotspot.
I think Apple still has a huge distance to travel to catch up with Nokia and RIM in terms of business users. Nokia has something like a 45% market share of smartphone users, with BlackBerry running second (and catching up fast) and Apple way down at around 5%.
The reasons for this are fairly simple. Apple tends to concentrate on fancy UI, whereas the other two concentrate more on actual communication. The new BB 3320 will allow you to seamlessly make voice calls over WiFi, effectively putting an end to voice and texting limits...as long as you pay the small extra charge for unlimited surfing
http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,138568/article.html
It also has GPS, which recently proved a godsend when I needed to exit the M1 motorway in a hurry.(even though I was using a TomTom at the time.)

I think additional features on a phone, like multimedia, Net/email, camera, GPS and organizer make great sense, but actual apps like SU really need something altogether larger....not laptop size, but maybe as big as some of the MP4 movie players....something that will fit in a jacket hip pocket rather than a shirt breast pocket or pants pocket.

dylan

You don't have to be on wi-fi to pick up email or surf the net on an iphone, it works anywhere.
I don't think you can really expect the iphone to take massive parts of the market in such a short period. Nokia and Blackberry have been operating in this sector for years and have far more experience.

The iPhone will fulfill my requirements and imo looks far slicker than anything else around at the moment.

remus

Alan, i think the iphone can (or at least certainly will be able to) do almost everything you mentioned there, and for considerably lower cost in a lot of cases.

Concerning the calls over WiFi, ive got a feeling skype are doing a version for the iphone, and eevn if theyre not theres already a cracked version for it.

pav_3j

@unknownuser said:

You don't have to be on wi-fi to pick up email or surf the net on an iphone, it works anywhere.
I don't think you can really expect the iphone to take massive parts of the market in such a short period. Nokia and Blackberry have been operating in this sector for years and have far more experience.

The iPhone will fulfill my requirements and imo looks far slicker than anything else around at the moment.

again couldn't agree more.

i had a blackberry, and found that i never fully utilised all of it's functions, then i got my xda, and it is near enough perfect bar the fact i have to use a stylus, the new iphone seems like perfect middle ground to me.

plus women will like you if you get one.

ha ha

pav

Alan Fraser

Remus, no it won't. That's why I bought a BlackBerry. Apple isn't a patch on RIM for business users.

For £30/month I get effectively unlimited voice, texting, surfing, Gmail and email from absolutely anywhere...even with no WiFi or O2 signal. The BB even came free on that tariff. BlackBerries can also communicate directly with one another via their PIN numbers via the Blackberry Network, without incurring any voice minutes at all.
That's why I'm waiting to upgrade to the BB Thunder in September.
The fact that the new BBs can voice over WiFi makes apps like Skype totally redundant on a smartphone.

remus

Just to be clear im talking about the iphone 2 here. And im positive it can do everythin you mentioned in your previous post (except gtalk, although i didnt know what it was untill i looke dit up 5 mins ago, my fault.)

monsterzero

In my opinion the iPhone is the StechUp of the mobile phone world. I've had other smartphones and the iPhone has been the best by far (never had a BB). I find it so much a joy to use that I don't really care about 2.0. I do most of my emailing on it and in fact this post as well. Its not just pretty it's super fun to use, I have no complaints.

As for GPS I wouldn't mind having it, but I can do what I need with the "current location" tech. I never print out any directions ever. I'd rather not have a seperate GPS anyway.

Alan Fraser

Remus, yes, I realise you're referring to iPhone V2, but I doubt very much that it can do it cheaper....or that it's anything like as good at emailing It doesn't have Push email for a start. It might have soon...at extra cost...via Mobile Me, but that is some way off yet. Right now a BB can do this built-in.
The new iPhone still can't send multimedia messages, voice dial, take video, cut and paste or Bluetooth to anything other than its own headphones...some of the reasons I didn't buy the original. By contrast, the BB connection to other devices is as simple as it is superb.

Personally, I don't see it as an either/or. I think the next few years will see the rise of the smartphone at the expense of the ordinary mobile/cellphone. And I think that both RIM and Apple are both set to expand massively, with other companies falling by the wayside. Motorola has already crashed and burnt in this sector and it wouldn't surprise me if the market leader, Nokia, was about to take a massive hit despite its excellent products (and cheapness vs Apple).

I know Apple makes a big deal of its popularity and coolness, but the plain fact is that in the last quarter more BBs were sold to the "consumer" sector alone (disregarding RIM's massive corporate user base) than the total number of all iPhone sales in the same period...and that's in spite of all the hype surrounding anything Apple-scented.

They are both excellent systems, in their different ways, that will keep getting more excellent. It's just that the BB is better suited to what I require in terms of telecoms. Basically, iPhones are getting a little more BlackBerry-like, with improved business enterprise features; at the same time Blackberries are becoming more populist with all the usual bells and whistles. At some point they are likely to become virtually indistinguishable...but right now BlackBerry is the only system that will allow me to chill-out beside some pool in the Greek Islands yet still allow me to email and surf...even allow me to approve models onto the FormFonts site... without racking-up any extras at all to my comparatively modest monthly billing plan.

Back to the original point, I'd still rather run even a sawn-off version of SU on a device that was both larger than a smartphone and that wasn't subject to all the vagaries of the telecom service, or on a device that one felt compelled to upgrade every 18 moths or so.