iPhone feature rumor round-up: Jabber and iTunes control
By Chris Ziegler 
posted Apr 28th 2008 8:53AM
posted Apr 28th 2008 8:53AM
All sorts of little gems are turning up in the iPhone firmware 2.0 code; first we had scraps of GPS support being tracked down, and now we have another pair of goodies that are sure to turn at least a few heads. First up, sister site TUAW is reporting that the latest release makes reference to some sort of remote control for iTunes installations that Apple appears to be billing as "iControl," allowing iPhone users to browse and play iTunes libraries from afar -- presumably over WiFi.TUAW's also got the lowdown on code suggesting support for XMPP, the protocol that underpins Jabber, and most famously, Google Talk. It seems that access to the XMPP framework is being kept solidly out of third-party developers' hands, though, meaning that Apple -- and Apple alone -- will be using it to support on-device iPhone chat. At this point, both of these features need to be quarantined in the "rumor" category, because even if the code does exist as TUAW's tipsters are claiming, there's certainly no guarantee it'll make the cut for firmware 2.0, iPhone 2, iPhone 3, or iPhone 10. Looks promising, though!
Read - iControl
Read - Jabber support
All I want on the iPhone is true multitasking. That'll make me switch from Symbian S60 for sure.
Can you elaborate on this point? What can you not accomplish on the iPhone that you can on the Nokia w.r.t multitasking?
Play music, use an instant messenger, create an e-mail, browse the Internet and download a file using a P2P client, all at the same time. Should I elaborate more?
Multitasking is coming. The OS supports it and apps CAN implement it now, though the current method isn't "officially" supported.
What the iPhone needs to convince the detractors is just some basic features present in all other phones: voice dialing, MMS, and IM. That's it for 90% of the market. Not everyone needs GPS or fancy TV over the air or any of that nonsense.
Just provide those basics and most detractors will be disarmed.
THANK YOU!!!!! Finally someone who gets it!
Don't forget video recording...
Wow, that's scary. I actually created a quick program for myself called "iTunes Controller" that did exactly that from my laptop. It would control my desktop's (and the computer with the good speakers) iTunes from my laptop. It just ran over the network and ran as a small service on both systems. Even if Apple doesn't offer that in the new iPhone, I could probably make the connector with the iPhone SDK in no time.
Multi-tasking is a must! MMS is a major disaster, BTW.
I dunno, I think having to selectively send the same picture via email that I am trying to send to friends via MMS is quite a pain in the behind.
So the real story behind the XMPP code is that it's used to support notifications (eg MobileMe Push Mail and most likely the notification service for developers later in the year):
http://samj.net/2008/07/apple-iphone-20-real-story-behind-push.html