[Sigia-l] Another brand of sugar: Apple multi-touch

[Will Parker]

On Jan 9, 2007, at 7:09 PM, Andrew Boyd wrote:

> I'm just wrapping up on a project that involved providing a PDA ebook
> version of a large clunky government publication as part of a range of
> replacement options.

Dear Ghod! I'm very sorry to hear that! I do hope you came away  
unscathed.

> My best guess (based on Apple's "no plans to
> release in Asia until 2008" and the time it takes new mobile phones to
> come to market here in Australia) is that it won't be an issue here
> for a while yet.

No, but presumably someone on the project should be thinking about a  
HTML version with mobile-specific CSS style sheet that would work on  
the iPhone and similar devices.

As an aside, since the iPhone takes SIM chips, the first time I get  
my hands on a working demo copy, I'm going to try swapping in the SIM  
from my T-mobile phone. If the hardware is carrier-neutral and Oz  
cell phones use a frequency a non-Australian iPhone understands, you  
might be able to jump ahead of the curve  ;-}

> We should be able to leverage off the experience of
> the first North American releases in terms of how different iPhone OSX
> is from the desktop version - there will be some form of compressed
> HTML ebook reader available no doubt, but possibly not the ones that
> we've designed for here. You get that :)

1) Must it be HTML, or could a PDF with internal links work? I'm  
guessing again, but it's likely that PDF will be a supported format.

2) See my previous message regarding Apple widgets. One of the  
officially reported features of the Safari browser and the Leopard  
Dashboard (special window in Mac OS X where widgets reside) is a web  
clipping widget. Click a button in Safari, and it creates a new  
widget displaying a live version of the current web page.

I'm sure you need more functionality, but it's relatively trivial to  
work up a scrolling view of styled HTML text and images in an Apple  
widget, so if all else fails, hire a Mac Widget Geek for a couple  
days and you'll have your reader.

3) Compressed HTML, as in .CHM files? As in the Microsoft stop-gap  
political solution for storing printable content without using Ol'  
Debbil Adobe's PDF?

Shouldn't that be the *fallback* format after live HTML (for ease of  
updates) and PDF, for cross-platform fidelity?

- Will
Will Parker
wparker at ChannelingDesign.com

"The only people who value your specialist knowledge are the ones who  
already have it." - William Tozier