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Found Footage: iPhone file transfer with style

iPhone developer Emanuele Vulcano pinged us with a note today telling us about a free file transfer app for the iPhone. Since most file transfer apps are a real yawner, I was dubious...until I watched the video.

What makes Mover (click opens iTunes) so cool is the way that it does the transfer. When you want to transfer an image or a contact card to another iPhone, you just launch the app on both devices, grab the image or card, point an arrow on one screen to match up with an arrow on another iPhone screen, then flick an icon representing the data you're sending. It moves off of your screen, and onto the other iPhone's screen, and the data is saved automatically. Very cool, and very iPhone-like!

Both iPhones need to be on the same WiFi network; there's no current way to do this over Bluetooth or a cellular network connection. Emanuele has made his code open source under the BSD license, so other developers are welcome to take a look at how he did this.

Check out Mover here (now with the correct embedding info):



iPhone developer Emanuele Vulcano pinged us with a note today telling us about a free file transfer app for the iPhone. Since most file...
 

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mariaritsen

hi! try to use iPod File transfer Software that allow you to save your video file from any types of corruptions.

June 08 2009 at 12:06 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Eddy120876

@robertchute

there is an app that does that is call "Bump" check it out on the itunes store :),but i do agree Apple should had done this from 1.0; but I can see why they waited so they can build up the anticipation and let App makers have the first crack at the OS before it goes public.

May 04 2009 at 5:02 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
robertchute

Shouldn't this sort of capability be standard on the iPhone? I wish that Apple would push out some new innovations to the iPhone. While copy/paste, MMS are certainly much needed features, they should have been there with the 1.0 release not 3.0.
With the iPhone beginning to dominate the smart phone market Apple could further innovate what phones are capable of. Imagine an Apple technology to simply pick a file and then tap one phone against another and bam instant file transfer. Every other phone manufacture would jump at the chance to license that.

May 04 2009 at 10:58 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
now4real954

so how long do we know if it's going to be a free app?

could be a great addition to the great apps of 2009

great job...can't wait to try it

May 04 2009 at 1:49 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to now4real954's comment
millenomi

There will always be a free version of the app. Otherwise, how could you get people to receive what you send? :)

May 04 2009 at 6:37 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
xxdesmusxx

Kind of funny that this is basically the same interface as Microsoft's Surface device.

May 03 2009 at 9:04 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to xxdesmusxx's comment
millenomi

I was more inspired by BumpTop: http://bumptop.com/

May 04 2009 at 6:39 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
FightTheFuture

that video needs the song "I Like to Move It" by Reel 2 Real as a music bed: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBnkJQWe0JQ

May 03 2009 at 8:12 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
MacNeurotic

This is one of those apps that makes a spectacular demo (especially for someone who doesn't have an iPhone). Does it make transferring data any easier or simple to use? Not really.

But it's still very impressive, visually. Might download it just as a show off app.

May 03 2009 at 8:09 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Jason

I have to think that this will work over Bluetooth once 3.0 is released with P2P available as park of the 3.0 SDK. That would be much more usable than WiFi, IMO

May 03 2009 at 7:31 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Daniel

Awesome, this even makes use of multi-touch. You can move around different photos/contacts independently at the same time. Awesome!

May 03 2009 at 7:25 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Kevlar

Here's the problem with iPhone "file transfer" apps:
There's no centralized storage.

I can "move" pictures and contacts all I want, but they're still limited to being used from within the "mover" app. (Maybe not contacts, but still).

The sandboxing of app data is terrific. It really is. But how about some centralized file store, with a built-in finder-like app for browsing and viewing the files. Then other apps could make moving and sharing this a breeze.

Apple could achieve this via super-locked down read & write file API, that would only provide limited access to this data. Maybe with max size limits, quotas, or a limit to the kinds of data that could be saved (like maybe only the files that can be read from e-mail attachments, maybe).

But think: Then we could actually store things on our phone!

We could then save files from e-mails, download certain file types from Safari, actually do something with the data we've received from other people using apps like mover.

TRANSFER FILES VIA BLUETOOTH!

Finally, we should be able to browse this data on any PC via a USB Mass Storage Device interface. That would be freaking amazing.

Oh, but I can dream... yes?

May 03 2009 at 6:34 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to Kevlar's comment
tuaw

It looked like the image was stored on the receiver's camera roll, so you should be able to access that from other apps on the iPhone.

But I agree with you for all other file types, yes.

May 03 2009 at 6:59 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
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