Document Viewer

[olafene]

Maybe this is a topic for future generations to come, but I thought it would be nice to mention now. I am an avid mac user and fan, since I started computing. I love the neat little apps we all have come to love that innovate and change technology as we see it (the iPhone itself as an example). One feature I truly appreciate is the "save as pdf" option. This allows you to make almost any document and save it as a pdf file, even compressed. It really helps with that whole "paperless society" trend. Anyway, wouldn't it be cool to have a viewer that allows you, aside from playing music, videos, and the sort, but also documents, like a school presentation, your board meeting review, a grocery shopping list, etc.?

{I scoured the search field and found nothing like this; sorry if it is a duplicate post}

 

[ebrunn]

Maybe this is a topic for future generations to come, but I thought it would be nice to mention now. I am an avid mac user and fan, since I started computing. I love the neat little apps we all have come to love that innovate and change technology as we see it (the iPhone itself as an example). One feature I truly appreciate is the "save as pdf" option. This allows you to make almost any document and save it as a pdf file, even compressed. It really helps with that whole "paperless society" trend. Anyway, wouldn't it be cool to have a viewer that allows you, aside from playing music, videos, and the sort, but also documents, like a school presentation, your board meeting review, a grocery shopping list, etc.?

{I scoured the search field and found nothing like this; sorry if it is a duplicate post}

I think David Pogue said that it had the preview program on the phone so you can read documents like PDF's on it.

 

[Spin This!]

yeh Apple's mail displays a preview of the PDF inline which is handy as well... PDF support is built-into the OS via Quartz so we'll see how much of that API makes it on the iPhone.

 

[joe]

Between Safari and Mail the iPhone should at least be able to view pdf files there. Safari could be used as a document viewer of sorts. I hope they include or allow others to build a viewer of things like .doc, .pdf, .txt, .rtf, etc. at the least.

 

[wjp09]

Im sure they will include .txt and .doc

 

[CybertiggerNW]

txt. and doc. would be a must if they want to be competitive with the businesss world.

 

[olafene]

txt. and doc. would be a must if they want to be competitive with the businesss world.

I would personally add .pdf and .htm to that list. Manuals and text-based instruction are usually in one of these two, but I would also agree with your .txt and doc.

Food for thought: I always thought it would be cool if a file could be "discovered" based on its meta-data, like a digital photograph does right now. There would be no extensions, and all the most common operating systems (Win2k, XP, Vista, OS X, *nix) would know how to handle them and use them. A universal application if you will.

 

[joe]

I would personally add .pdf and .htm to that list. Manuals and text-based instruction are usually in one of these two, but I would also agree with your .txt and doc.

Food for thought: I always thought it would be cool if a file could be "discovered" based on its meta-data, like a digital photograph does right now. There would be no extensions, and all the most common operating systems (Win2k, XP, Vista, OS X, *nix) would know how to handle them and use them. A universal application if you will.

I'm pretty sure pdf has already been confirmed and htm(l) should already be a no-brainer since it has Safari.

 

[Spin This!]

There would be no extensions, and all the most common operating systems (Win2k, XP, Vista, OS X, *nix) would know how to handle them and use them. A universal application if you will.

That's a cool idea—if everyone supported it equally. Sadly, that's not the world we live in today. There are so many different formats (every application almost has its own) that it would be nearly impossible just from the operating system's perspective to keep everything straight. You think multiple companies are going to accept one type of file? Or that proprietary formats will be read equally by all?

What about unknown file types? Does the OS just guess? Does it try to run the file as an application? In the former case, if you have a big file, that's going to be a lot of ram you have to potentially read into memory just to figure out what it is, which is going to be very slow; in the latter case, if you try to execute the file as compiled code... we'll let's just say that's a security problem waiting to happen. In either case, it's not the most efficient way of getting data when you're showing a list of files to a user.

ID3 and EXIF, probably the most popular meta data formats, are also the most abused formats. Different applications (including iTunes) and camera makers don't even support the formats to the full extent or even read/write them correctly to begin with.

Mac OS X (and Mac OS 9) actually does away with extensions to some extent—file types are actually embedded inside the file with the creator and document type—but only if the file originated on Mac (with HFS file system).

 

[lasquintanas]

Maybe this is a topic for future generations to come, but I thought it would be nice to mention now. I am an avid mac user and fan, since I started computing. I love the neat little apps we all have come to love that innovate and change technology as we see it (the iPhone itself as an example). One feature I truly appreciate is the "save as pdf" option. This allows you to make almost any document and save it as a pdf file, even compressed. It really helps with that whole "paperless society" trend. Anyway, wouldn't it be cool to have a viewer that allows you, aside from playing music, videos, and the sort, but also documents, like a school presentation, your board meeting review, a grocery shopping list, etc.?

{I scoured the search field and found nothing like this; sorry if it is a duplicate post}

Speaking of grocery lists, here is an app that someone from macforums made. Cool little app. http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=308879

 

[Bootlessjam]

I think they would at least have a folder that you can put your text files into so you can view them in the UI of the phone, like the iPod does now.

I was just wondering, on Safari on computers, you can access local files by entering file:///users/username/folder or file into the URL bar

And since safari natively supports pdf, quicktime movies, pictures, flash, java apps. With plugins you can view word documents and other file types. Maybe you could use this method to view other files that are not able to be viewed with iPhone's other apps.

 

[Cantwait4iPhone]

As Joe mentioned earlier, I think PDFs have already been confirmed. I will try to find the source of this for you guys. And the others, like .txt, .doc, .htm, .html should be on there considering that this thing is running OS X and that it is so advanced.


EDIT: I got the link. If you scroll down the page a bit, you will find this:

Can it open Word and Excel documents? –No. (Steve Jobs says it can open PDF files, though.)

It is a great site to look at overall, though, so just read through it. I found this in another thread on this site. Be sure to check out the FAQ part 2.

 

[ColsTiger]

I don't think this is a top priority for Steve Jobs. He even mentioned in one the interviews last week that he didn't think people would ever edit their homework on their cell phones.

 

[Cantwait4iPhone]

I don't think this is a top priority for Steve Jobs. He even mentioned in one the interviews last week that he didn't think people would ever edit their homework on their cell phones.

Maybe not, but with how high-class this phone is, I can't see them not putting in at least some of these file extensions. I think PDFs are a yes for now, but we never know.

 

[ColsTiger]

Maybe not, but with how high-class this phone is, I can't see them not putting in at least some of these file extensions. I think PDFs are a yes for now, but we never know.

Maybe he was commenting more on the future of computers than cell phones. He might have meant that there would always be a need for laptops and personal computers.

 

[Cantwait4iPhone]

Maybe he was commenting more on the future of computers than cell phones. He might have meant that there would always be a need for laptops and personal computers.

Hmm, that's an interesting point. There is a possibility that the phone will cover these areas of technology, but not to the extent of a computer, so that people still have a need for the computer . Plus, I don't think phones will ever match the abilities of the computer.

 

[ColsTiger]

Hmm, that's an interesting point. There is a possibility that the phone will cover these areas of technology, but not to the extent of a computer, so that people still have a need for the computer . Plus, I don't think phones will ever match the abilities of the computer.

Probably not.

 

[joe]

Hmm, that's an interesting point. There is a possibility that the phone will cover these areas of technology, but not to the extent of a computer, so that people still have a need for the computer . Plus, I don't think phones will ever match the abilities of the computer.

The iPhone is the ultimate portable computer. If not at first, it should eventually be able to read most common file formats and do a majority of what you use your laptop for.

 

[Spin This!]

do a majority of what you use your laptop for.

Are you kidding me? Anyone thinking the iPhone will match 1% of what a computer will do is going to be severely let down—unless all you down is surf the Internet.

Unless Photoshop is ported to run on this thing, and I can compile Apache for web development... etc. You get the point. Typing anything longer than what you're reading now is going be very tedious if not downright annoying. That's true of any phone.

I wonder if some 3rd party manufacturer will provide video output capabilities... that would be interesting just to bring your iPhone for presentations... etc.

 

[joe]

Are you kidding me? Anyone thinking the iPhone will match 1% of what a computer will do is going to be severely let down—unless all you down is surf the Internet.

Unless Photoshop is ported to run on this thing, and I can compile Apache for web development... etc. You get the point. Typing anything longer than what you're reading now is going be very tedious if not downright annoying. That's true of any phone.

I wonder if some 3rd party manufacturer will provide video output capabilities... that would be interesting just to bring your iPhone for presentations... etc.

Nope, not kidding. Most folks browse and email. But this device can do much more if it's allowed. After all, it is OS X. Imagine pairing a bluetooth keyboard and mouse, and connecting to a larger display. Now all you need are applications and storage space. With a little imagination, you might be surprised what this thing might be capable of. Consider the guys putting Linux on their iPods or using Symbian, consider Palm and Newton. Photoshop does not fall into the realm of what a majority of folks use their laptops for but could this device do that someday? Maybe!