February 04, 2010

No USB syncing for iPhones... but my PDFs!

The state of personal devices is in flux once more with Apple's announcement of the coming iPad. As a appliance device, it does not interest me specifically, but its presence has affected the treatment of the iPhone OS already. Apple is now enforcing that apps not use the private API's which allowed them USB syncing. I have used Stanza as my PDF reader of choice brilliantly for quite some time. The new crackdown is discussed well in this blog post:
Bye Bye USB Syncing: Is the iPad Bad for iPhone OS?
Apple's upcoming iBooks will mean less leniency for competitive products. I do hope that the rumored swap folder API for the iPad will also make its way onto the iPhone. It will be interesting to see the software differentiation in the future between the two devices. The iPad is the topic of the day, but even well after launch, there will always be scads more iPhones out in the wild than iPads.
I hope the state of pushing your own PDFs to the iPhone (and iPad) aren't unsettled long.

1 comment:

R. Mansfield said...

I use the MobileMe iDisk for this, and I presume I'll be able to on the iPad.