Hey all,
So, most everyone with a first gen 3000GT is familiar with MMCD, the datalogger software for old palm pilots, but palms with serial ports like that are old, hard to find, and lacking so many features compared to newer devices.
I don't know what will come of the newly announced 3G iPhone, but at least as far as the 6 million original iPhones (and i don't know how many iTouch's were sold), they are really easy to mod to allow 3rd party software to be installed on the device, and the details of controlling the serial port are well documented online, right here:
There is plenty of information available online on programming a Jailbroken iPhone, (or apple has an official dev kit but it costs money, has limitations, etc), so all we need is someone who can write a nice program for the iphone and honestly it looks like it wouldn't be too hard! There would also need to be a special cable to convert levels but that's pretty simple.
Anyone know anyone who could do this? There could be some pretty cool applications with all the interface and connectivity options the iphone has.
From what I know the iphone SDK is only able to be used on a mac. I would look into this and give it a shot but I don't own a mac.
Well, there are now two ways to write applications for the iPhone.
You can basically either write official apps, or unofficial apps.
Official apps are written with apple's SDK, which they recently began providing, and once you make an app, it has to be approved by apple and they distribute it via the iTunes app store that opens July 11. You can easily charge for these apps but i'm not sure you can give them away for free, or how much it will cost you.
The unofficial way involves unlocking read/write access to the file system of your iphone or itouch so that you can install any applications you want, and then writing the application using existing tutorials on the iphone's file system. It is incredibly easy to unlock read/write access for your phone (a process called "Jailbreaking") using any number of freely available apps online (i used iLiberty+) and just a few clicks. Once you jailbreak your iphone, a program is added that lets the user install any 3rd party program they want, right from the iphone. If you are a 3rd party developer, you just make a simple XML file on your site that describes what software you have available to download, and an iPhone user can add the address of that file to the "sources" list in that program, and your software will instantly become available for them to download. You can still charge for software by including unlock codes in the software and giving people a paypal link, or you can give it away for free if you want.
I suggest going the "unofficial" route because it is the best way to give it away freely, which i would want for a project like this.
If you google for "iPhone programming" you'll find plenty of helpful resources on programming a jailbroken iphone. I found this link with that search: iPhoneDevDocs
It looks decent.
But anyway, i was really hoping there'd be a stronger response. Maybe it's just because you guys haven't seen what a jailbroken iphone is capable of, but there are many hundreds of 3rd party apps written by people from all over the world to do any number of things, it is completely realistic for us to come up with a datalogger app for our cars that runs on this platform!
-Taylor Alexander
Well, there are now two ways to write applications for the iPhone.
You can basically either write official apps, or unofficial apps.
Official apps are written with apple's SDK, which they recently began providing, and once you make an app, it has to be approved by apple and they distribute it via the iTunes app store that opens July 11. You can easily charge for these apps but i'm not sure you can give them away for free, or how much it will cost you.
The unofficial way involves unlocking read/write access to the file system of your iphone or itouch so that you can install any applications you want, and then writing the application using existing tutorials on the iphone's file system. It is incredibly easy to unlock read/write access for your phone (a process called "Jailbreaking") using any number of freely available apps online (i used iLiberty+) and just a few clicks. Once you jailbreak your iphone, a program is added that lets the user install any 3rd party program they want, right from the iphone. If you are a 3rd party developer, you just make a simple XML file on your site that describes what software you have available to download, and an iPhone user can add the address of that file to the "sources" list in that program, and your software will instantly become available for them to download. You can still charge for software by including unlock codes in the software and giving people a paypal link, or you can give it away for free if you want.
I suggest going the "unofficial" route because it is the best way to give it away freely, which i would want for a project like this.
If you google for "iPhone programming" you'll find plenty of helpful resources on programming a jailbroken iphone. I found this link with that search: iPhoneDevDocs
It looks decent.
But anyway, i was really hoping there'd be a stronger response. Maybe it's just because you guys haven't seen what a jailbroken iphone is capable of, but there are many hundreds of 3rd party apps written by people from all over the world to do any number of things, it is completely realistic for us to come up with a datalogger app for our cars that runs on this platform!
-Taylor Alexander
I don't own an Iphone yet. Waitin on the 3g
I think this would be pretty cool to explore into however I don't have all the resources to achieve this. I would really need to talk to someone who's already done a logger to see how the inner workings of the ecu work and what not. I don't have any background in chips and such. I'm straight software.
I think this would be pretty cool to explore into however I don't have all the resources to achieve this. I would really need to talk to someone who's already done a logger to see how the inner workings of the ecu work and what not. I don't have any background in chips and such. I'm straight software.
Well, you won't need to know anything about the inner-workings of the ECU, because the guy who made MMCD already figured that out - that's whats in my first post.
All we need is someone who can write an app for the iphone that can do serial output and input, which is described in a link in the first post (but i don't know how do do the other bits and pieces of the program), and anyone with some basic electronics skill can design up the interface cable itself. If no one else, i could, its just a serial level converter.
Does anyone know anyone who does this much?
Or should we hop onto another forum like modmyiphone.com and ask people for help?
-Taylor
I would love to get into this but it will have to wait a few weeks. The project I'm working on is set for release in 3 weeks so we're workin tons to get shit done last minute.
I should have my iphone by then and could start working with you to look into making this a possibility. I think the real area to look into is whether or not we could get shiver to give us info on the hybrid. It'd be cool to bring that on to the phone.
I'm interested in helping out here as well. I'm currently debating whether to get a 3G, or get an older iphone and not extend my contract. I'm fine with only using wifi and really just need a new phone and mp3 player...
I'm an electrical engineering student and currently interning at a company where coincidentally I have been involved with both cross-compilers as well as RS-232 (serial) interfacing.
The 3G does open new doors as far as GPS - acceleration and top speed calculators for example.
I'm interested in helping out here as well. I'm currently debating whether to get a 3G, or get an older iphone and not extend my contract. I'm fine with only using wifi and really just need a new phone and mp3 player...
I'm an electrical engineering student and currently interning at a company where coincidentally I have been involved with both cross-compilers as well as RS-232 (serial) interfacing.
The 3G does open new doors as far as GPS - acceleration and top speed calculators for example.
I've looked into some programming regarding rs-232 in C but never did anything with it. I think this would be a pretty good opportunity to get a nice logging product out.
If only shiver would open his source for his logger......... or at least provide insight.
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iPhone/iTouch as a datalogger?
