One feature of many other handheld devices is the ability to use the device as a portable flash drive to move data between a couple of computers. The iPhone doesn't have that ability now, but will on July 28, 2008.

That's the day that DataCase will be available in the iTunes App Store for $6.99. From Veiosoft, DataCase works with Apple Filing Protocol (AFP) and Bonjour to allow any Mac on the same network as your phone to transfer files to and from it.

Your iPhone appears as a Mac volume, so you just drag-and-drop data you want to take with you. If you're a Windows or Linux user, DataCase gives you the same capabilities from your iPhone using HTTP and FTP.

In case you want to view those files you've moved to your iPhone, DataCase lets you read Microsoft Office, PDF, and text files. You can create up to 16 different volumes on your iPhone, each of which can be set up with read/write/browse permissions. Volumes can be made invisible to protect data from unauthorized people or iPhone snatchers.

This is an innovative app that I think a lot of iPhone owners are going to buy come July 28th.

Insanely awesome iPhone hacker and developer "Core" just finished implementing AFP for the iPhone and iPod touch. This software connects your iPhone (or touch) to your computer using AFP, the AppleTalk Filing Protocol. Your iPhone shows up on your desktop as a disk with full read/write access.

The AFP server is brand new, so it is not yet available in Installer.app. To install by hand, use sftp to copy the tar file into /opt/iphone. Extract the archive on your iPhone or touch--the tar archive program is part of the BSD program; use tar xvf name-of-archive.tar--and run /opt/iphone/afp/startserver.sh &. The ampersand lets the program run in the background. (You will need to restart it after reboots.)

Once installed and running, go to Finder. Choose Go > Connect To Server, and enter the afp address for your iPhone, in my case afp://192.168.0.111. Just use the afp:// prefix with the local IP address of your iPhone. Enter your user id (root) and password (alpine) and your iPhone or iPod appears in the sources list for your Finder windows.

Once your iPhone learns how to add itself as a disk, you'll start wondering how you ever lived without this. To add new applications, just drop them into the Applications folder. To back-up your personal data, just copy /var/root/Library. This is just an awesome accomplishment. Thank you Core!

Hopefully soon, we'll see not only an Installer.app version but one with a controllable launch daemon that will let you enable and disable the service as desired.

Update: If you're installing by hand, make sure you use the version for Registered Users. It's the one from November 10th. Don't use the earlier one that only allows guest mode.

This week in Ask TUAW we'll be considering questions about the "Open With..." menu option, mounting drives over a local network, using iTunes with a cell phone, getting all your original photos out of iPhoto, and syncing files between a notebook and a desktop Mac. Remember new Mac users and Switchers who are enjoying our Mac 101 series should feel very welcome to post questions for Ask TUAW; we're happy to have them. As always, please submit your questions by commenting to this post or using our tip form.

The Apple TV hacks are coming fast and furious as recorded on both the Something Awful thread we already told you about, and at the Apple TV Hacks blog. Over at Something Awful, user macado shows the Apple TV successfully decoding a 720p XviD clip using the open source VLC player (though only for 6 minutes). Other users have demonstrated Firefox and iTunes running on an Apple TV as well. Meanwhile at Apple TV Hacks, there are already tutorials up on getting SSH and AFP access and even setting up Remote Desktop (VNC) and Apache.

In short, the Apple TV has been busted wide open and is well on its way to being hacked into a general purpose (if rather underpowered) mini Mac mini (Mac nano, perhaps?), running OS X 10.4.7 as you can see above. For those of you with a hankering to break your warranties, it looks like the Apple TV is eminently hackable and has a lot of potential.

[Via Apple TV Hacks]

Update: the 6 minute thing has to do with the fact that the Apple TV automatically resets after 6 minutes (see the comments below).