Mint and iPhone: Two great tastes that taste great together

Mint is an excellent web stats tracking app from Shaun Inman with a powerful, extensible plug-in architecture. The iPhone is an excellent... well you know the rest of that one. While these two things might not have much to do with each other at first glance, a plug-in and a hack have brought us one step closer to having a more minty iPhone experience.

First up is a new iPhone Pepper (aka - plug-in) for Mint that formats your stat panes into a single column for better viewing on MobileSafari. Simply install it via the typical Mint procedure, activate it and *boom* - this new pepper stays out of your way when using a real desktop browser, but auto-detects MobileSafari and displays the proper single-column formatting when you're on the go. The drop-down pane atop Mint's admin panel even works, offering quick access to panes way down below with only two taps.

Next up on the list of iPhone Mint-ification steps you can take is adding a full-blown Home screen button for Mint, courtesy of iPhone Apper and what looks like the easiest way to get ssh/sftp installed on the iPhone yet.

Shaun's instructions for getting this all installed aren't that tough to follow, and he makes a good point: as long as you sync your photos off your iPhone (using iPhoto, Aperture or even Image Capture from your Applications folder), you likely don't have to worry about borking your iPhone when tinkering with stuff like this. A simple Restore from iTunes will bring your iPhone back to factory defaults and replace (almost) all your data, including contacts, media and calendar appointments (this is where backing your photos up comes in handy: for some odd reason, iTunes doesn't do that for you). If you ultimately try this, you too can have a sexy little Mint on your Home screen, either in that Dock-like bar at the bottom or juggled in with your other apps.

Last but not least on your journey of Minty iPhone bliss is, of course, a stylish wallpaper. Inman created three Mint walls for the iPhone with a variety of backgrounds, ensuring there should be at least something for everyone (on a sidenote: the bright green wallpaper on the left can be a little bright at night, even with the iPhone's auto-brightness turned on).

That's about it for melding the wonders of Mint and your iPhone together, at least for now. From what I've read on Shaun Inman's blog, he caught the iPhone fever hard after trying to withstand its powers (resistance is futile Shaun!), and with his talents for web programming, who knows what else he can come up with. For the time being, enjoy a more minty iPhone that unfortunately won't do much for your breath... but at least it can help you stay on top of your site visitors while away from your computer.