Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Software, Developer, iPhone
Wanted: An iPhone power miser app
While Guy Kawasaki might be able to get 36 hours of standby life out of his iPhone 3G, many of the rest of us are struggling with having enough power to make it through a day. Mike Davidson, CEO of Newsvine in Seattle, came up with a great idea for any iPhone developers in the TUAW audience. He'd like to see an iPhone power miser application that could turn off 3G, location services, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and push e-mail with one tap (low drain mode), then turn on all of the same services with another tap (full power mode).
Davidson explains that it currently takes him 15 steps to disable the power-hungry features of his 3G, and another 15 steps to turn those features back on. Whether or not those features are something that the average NDA'd iPhone developer can actually control is one big question; if they aren't, this would be a great app for Apple to develop -- quickly!
Me? I'm waiting for "The Clapper" version of the power miser app -- "Clap On! Clap Off!"
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
James said 5:07PM on 8-28-2008
Does the SDK even allow this behavior?
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Tim Dorr said 6:24PM on 8-28-2008
As someone in the dev program, I can tell you that none of it is available. This would need to be developed as a jailbreak app.
Ryan Trevisol said 7:07PM on 8-28-2008
In a word, no.
DevilGhost said 5:07PM on 8-28-2008
That is the best idea i heard yet for iPhone App
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David Park said 11:21PM on 8-28-2008
Can't do it. I had this idea the first week the iPhone was out.
welchb said 5:10PM on 8-28-2008
I'd love this. But what I'd *really* like is bossprefs from when I had my old 1gen jailbroken. One place to turn that stuff off and on.
Like the example I've posted here before - just to cut on bluetooth for my headset is 8 damn steps:
(from sleep)
1) click home (or sleep/wake) button
2) swipe
3) click home (optional if I hadn't been in another app)
4) nav to first page (optional if I happen to have left it on 1)
5) click prefs
6) click general
7) click bluetooth
8) turn on bluetooth.
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Adam said 6:23PM on 8-28-2008
Jailbreak your 3G and put Bossprefs on it, then.
Doc said 5:11PM on 8-28-2008
Why apple did not include this in the 3G tells me their off their game in cupertino!
And I'm a mac mac
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Scott said 5:12PM on 8-28-2008
Boss Prefs works great... just that you have to jailbreak.
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MetPhotoDotNet said 5:12PM on 8-28-2008
Hmmm, I had this idea even before I got my iPhone 3G! Like all my great ideas I wished I had mentioned it before! :-)
The ideal power save app would allow you to configure which bits of the iPhone you want to turn on or off when you tap the icon.
Mark
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Doc said 5:16PM on 8-28-2008
@welchb
You still can, it's in cydia and has been for some time!
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apparatus said 5:17PM on 8-28-2008
This functionality has been available on jailbroken phones for quite some time, but can't be done within the limits of the SDK.
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Andrew Warner said 5:26PM on 8-28-2008
Yes! Great idea. Please build this.
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Mitch Aunger said 5:54PM on 8-28-2008
this was covered this morning on toucharcade...
http://forums.toucharcade.com/showthread.php?threadid=62
- one post indicates that it is against apple SDK policies to build such an app.
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Joao Coutinho said 5:24PM on 8-28-2008
I'm waiting for this app.
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totoro said 5:22PM on 8-28-2008
Great idea.
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jessplusben said 5:42PM on 8-28-2008
I would pay $10 for this app..
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Ben said 5:31PM on 8-28-2008
Not within terms of SDK, so fix it, Apple! How about just being able to tap the battery icon from ANYWHERE you can see the status bar and have two modes, power saver which turns off basically everything, and the normal mode? An app like bossprefs would be nice, too, but I'd really like to be able to have both options.
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Dan Philibin said 5:38PM on 8-28-2008
If this hooked into the double-tap Home button function it'd be awesome. I don't see how it could get any easier, and it would certainly be more functional than any of the other options the double-tap offers. Is that even possible?
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FatMax said 5:40PM on 8-28-2008
Ehm...airplane mode anyone..?
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