iPhone, iPad, iPod Forums at iMore.com

[sethclifford]

Now this is something I was thinking about today as my phone sat in its pretty little dock on my desk. Everyone's been talking about what they want to see in 2.2 lately, and it's coming, so we're all excited. But you know what would be really awesome?

I'd LOVE to see a kind of desktop application for my Mac that allows me to use iPhone features (SMS for instance) directly through the phone while it's docked. I don't like pulling it out to respond to a text, and that's just one thing I can think of. You can play your music from there through iTunes while it's docked, why not something like this?

Plus, you can probably think of other useful ways to build on this, but it just seems like the kind of thing Apple could do that would just be so awesome and useful. Even if it were not a separate application, but something built directly into iTunes that was accessible only when your phone was connected. I know iTunes is already a bloated pig, but I'd love that kind of functionality.

Is this crazy? Oh, and a pre-emptive apology if this has been brought up before.

[Jeremy Sikora]

I've thought about that before, it would be cool. It is annoying when you are on the computer and you get a bunch of texts and have to reply via the phone. Petty I'm sure but it would be cool.

[Yeraze]

While that is a kewl idea, it's probably too close to Tethering for Apple to implement it.

Personally, i'ld like to see better use made of the GeoLocation features & BlueTooth, eg enabling Macbook apps to query your iPhone for your location and update accordingly (like the new Geode extension).

[afazel]

Well there's nothing official from Apple like this right now, but if your phone has been jailbroken you can install Veency. It's a VNC server for your iPhone and will let you do anything from your PC that you can do from your phone. It actually works really well too

[3guser]

I love that idea! I just need to get an Imac or the new macbook pro.....money is not available for it right now which sucks. I will take donations thank you very much!

[sethclifford]

I was thinking, it would also be awesome if while my phone is docked, I could dial numbers on screen with my bluetooth earpiece in and make calls from the phone. I ran into this problem several times today. I had to pick the phone up in the dock, dial the number and place it back down.

I realize this makes me sound criminally lazy, but I think you get the idea. It's about streamlining the experience no matter what the capacity...

[Reaktor5]

IPhone Fusion: OLO Wants to Fuse the iPhone with Netbooks

Interesting.
Probably will never see the light of day though.

[Rene Ritchie]

Tron Avatar +5 Geek Cred!!

SMS should just get parsed and shot through to iChat or whatever IM client you like.

I hate all these fragmented, archaic, sandboxed protocols!

FREEDOM!

[RichardG]

nice idea.... good if apple implements it

[sethclifford]

Thanks Rene! I always appreciate whenever anyone notices... and I like the idea about sending SMS through to an existing app. Of course, it would probably only be iChat, if Apple's going to do it...

Does anyone know if the SDK allows for devs to access desktop apps through the dock connector? (I would imagine not, as in Apple's perfect, shiny world would be thrown into turmoil by mere suggestion of said process.)

It would add a layer of interactivity to the phone that no one's been able to do yet. And would preclude the need to buy a separate item (a la Palm Foleo, or the thing Reaktor5 mentioned).