Users of webOS and HTC Sense can skip ahead, you're already familiar with tight social networking integration on your handsets. Now Apple appears ready to join the social, so to speak. New evidence of low-level Facebook event and contacts integration has been revealed in iPhone OS 4 hinting at the possibility of unified Calendar and Contacts apps from Apple when the OS launches this summer on, um,
this device.
Web site Website
Gunning for Safety says that Apple appears to have created a "separate type of contact" just for Facebook. On its own, the claim is suspect if only because the site's focus is related to nail gun safety. But we've grabbed copies of the associated .plist files from a
jailbroken iPhone running OS 4 that seemingly back the claim. There's even mention of a generic "SocialKitInternal.framework" opening the door for integration with services like Twitter -- though we found no evidence for that. All this aligns nicely with a "Linked Contacts" feature discovered by
AppleInsider last week. According to
AI, multiple Linked Contacts can be associated to a single entry in the new iPhone OS 4 Contacts app. See some of the .plist evidence in the gallery below.
posted April 19th 2010 8:02AM
Yaaaaaawn.... I'm sure steve will have a conference about how he invented it.
Looks like they really nailed this piece of news!
(Looking over this blog, it's part of a project from some students at Boston University related to creating a safe nail gun, so it's not too out of the ordinary to think they'd be interested in the iPhone OS.)
I don't quite see the logic in it, but so much the better. This sentence ranks among the funniest things I've ever read here: "On its own, the claim is suspect if only because the site's focus is related to nail gun safety."
I'm sorry, but it's April 2010 and iPhoneOS looks freaking stale. Not gonna lie, it was THE SHIT when the iphone first came out...but now it's pretty lame. I'm sort of underwhelmed at OS4.
At least it still has the smoothest (but not by much now) browser out.
@Steven
Um... you're aware there is a little lawsuit going on with Android, no?
If you're scratching your head as to how Android caught up so fast on features, you're obviously not an Apple Lawyer :P
@Wesscoast
By caught up, you mean surpassed right?
Also the lawsuit is with HTC, so you're obviously not an Apple lawyer either :D
@andthemaniam And what do you think this HTC suite is about? HTC? Eee, wrong.
Lemme guess, WebOS, Sense UI, Moto Blur and to a lesser extent Android w/ the Facebook app do it already. Apple on the other hand is going to do it "RIGHT" just like multi-tasking?
iPhone OS 4.0 "The me too OS"
I hate Facebook.
I know there's lots of you folk out there who hate Flash and are happy it's not on the iPhone. Well, I hate Facebook. I hate that my friends insist that I join up and then send me stupid bleedin "Here's a cute bunny, just for you, Would you like to send a cute bunny to all your friends?" I hate being sent stupid fan clubs that I don't want to join. I hate the invasion of privacy and creepy people I have never heard of trying to be my friend.
So I have LOVED up until now that Social Network Integration hasn't been on the iPhone.
@Gregorian
i think they might have implemented one of steve's recent inventions called "choice", which would let you not use this feature
i'm only guessing
@Gregorian
Here's an idea...stop being such a following sheep. I can't think of a single thing a friend could INSIST I do. You do know no one can force you to use a website?
@Gregorian
You guys wanna be my friends on FB?
Just so you guys know (you didn't seem to mention it), there's already (very) low-level Facebook integration on the iPhone. My contacts are already linked to their Facebook account and profile photo, it's a setting with the current Facebook app on the iPhone. It's nothing huge, but it isn't absolutely nothing as alluded to here.
@awesomerobot
Also I'd rather Apple just beefed up their API's allowing devs to do all the cool stuff they want, rather than looking to Apple for this kind of thing.... It feels like them getting into "Internet Explorer" territory if they just take over the Facebook integration...
Instead just let the Facebook apps do a better job.
Contacts synced from Facebook is nice, but syncing calendars would just be heavenly. Given how much easier it is to organise a group event on Facebook than inviting people by sending an ICS around via email, I think syncing down Facebook events into the iPhone and/or the Mac would be incredibly useful.
@TheSeanWilson
You can already kinda do this. All upcoming facebook events are added automatically to my iphone calendar via a personalised RSS feed. You can assign different colours to different feeds as well.
@in5ane How do you do that??
Do we really need to know what people are doing on an instant basis?
Nice!
WinMo 7(ish)?
How much you wanna bet Apple patents it....
Too bad if it's built around Facebook - makes me want to not get iPhone. I do not want to use Facebook so I do not want to have everything on my iPhone to be integrated into Facebook out-of-the-box without asking me if I want it or not.
I don't mind Stevo and the crew controlling things much. All my iPhone apps are great quality and actually work.
There's so much cr*p in the Android market - and all goes unmonitored (quality and integrity). I had a Hero for a while - the OS is kind of nice, but the app store and HTC's attitude towards the Hero is appalling.
Ahh the news just keeps getting sweeter and sweeter! Can't wait for the new phone and OS. I've been holding out (still have the first gen) for a phone and OS like this.
This is soooo WinPho7.
(read thick with sarcasm)
I guess this is cool. The facebook app already kinda tries to integrate with your contacts (in that it adds photos and a nonworking profile link), but it's buggy as hell.
@liquidsuns
correct me if i'm wrong, but i think it also runs everybody through the friend finder, wholesale? i'm not sure that's a good idea, if you have any professional contacts in there.
I had that linked contacts option on my iPhone running beta 1. I tried to link two contacts together and it disappeared. I no longer have that optin anymore.
you guys are missing the big point here though some of you have gotten it. Andriod and webos have been doing the from out of the gate. Apple just added this feature and your going ape shit for something that has been around for a long time.
It's good to see Apple trying to catch up to the competition.
*looks at blackberry* how is this considered new?
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