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Ecamm brings iPhone disk storage
Yesterday, ecamm introduced iPhoneDrive, a utility that lets you use your iPhone disk to store arbitrary data files. I downloaded a copy and after a quick false start and a software update that addressed compatibility issues with my PowerPC G4, I was able to load files onto and recover them from my iPhone drive. Ecamm are the developers who brought us such Mac classics as iGlasses and iChatUSBCam. Apple seems to have deliberately omitted hard drive storage from the iPhone (probably to protect the underlying OS X files from public scrutiny and hack-cidents). Hard drive storage is a valuable component of any portable media player since it allows you to bring files with you that you'd normally carry on a separate thumb drive. To deliver your files from one computer to another, you will have to install iPhoneDrive on the receiving computer. I found that file transfer, both onto and off from the iPhone, went smoothly. It took about 5 minutes to transfer a 350 MB 45-minute episode of America's Next Top Model in each direction. Unfortunately, being the first release, iPhoneDrive has a few flaws that should clear up in later versions. You cannot rename a file once it is on your drive. Also, although you can create a folder hierarchy, you cannot drag items into or out from folders. I suspect this is just the first of what I hope will be many third party iPhone utilities. You can try out iPhoneDrive for 7 days without restriction. After, it will cost you ten bucks--not a huge price for a feature that many of us wish Apple had built into the iPhone in the first place.
Huckleberry turns your iSight world around
Perhaps, at some sort of Mac geek gathering, you have witnessed the maneuver I call "the HighSight." This dance sensation is characterized by the hoisting of an iSight-enabled laptop into the air, lens towards the crowd, to capture a short video or a quick PhotoBooth still. Adding to the degree of difficulty and the ever-so-slightly-ridiculous appearance of the move is the iSight's angle of view back across the keyboard; much hinge bending ensues.eCamm Network can't stop you from using your $2,000 laptop as a gravity-defying $15 webcam, but they can make it a bit easier with the little plastic periscope they're calling Huckleberry (originally noted on TUAW when announced in October), shipping worldwide today. This little item (which might as well have escaped from MAKE's labs) will reorient your world and point your iSight's wee eye back over the other side of the laptop, easing the production of most anything that requires you to type and capture at the same time. $19.95 is the toll, and it ships with a license for their iChat customization tool iGlasses as well.
