[Adium-devl] Adium iPhone

[Chris Forsythe]

So coming back to this, I think it needs to be discussed as to whether  
or not this is even viable in the first place. The question everyone  
has to ask themselves is whether or not it can be done well. And by  
well, I mean really well.

The question you have to ask is what the pros and cons of making a  
mobile IM client is. I say mobile IM and not Adium, because you would  
basically be creating a new IM client from scratch, implementing  
libraries and things of that nature, and then slapping the name Adium  
on it. That's not a bad thing so long as it can stand up to the name  
that so many people have put their hard work behind.

Anyhow, so there are a few reasons I can think to do an IM client, and  
a few reasons not to do an IM client:

Pro
- It's cheaper than SMS - Obviously, if you are already paying for  
data, and you are not paying for additional SMS for more than 200  
messages out to people.
- It'd be a neat project - Obvious.
- It'd be a possible way to generate a lot of money for the project  
and possibly employ a few of the key Developers - Do some math. If 100  
copies were sold at 1.99, you get 200 dollars for the project. If  
100000 copies are sold, etc etc.
Persistent availability
- <+sholt> sending cat pictures to that one guy you kinda sorta like,  
but don't want to get your phone number - Tasty sammiches for all.

Cons
- It will be a lot of work. - A lot of people are able to work on  
Adium part of the time, but the question is whether those same people  
can work on another IM client code base, more or less.
- There isn't a lot of ways to make an IM client on the iPhone unique.  
- I can't think of a way to make an iPhone application for IM very  
unique from other IM applications on the iPhone.
- Translating Adium to the iPhone is unlikely. - Adium has a lot of  
fun and unique properties that I don't see translating very well to  
the iPhone.

What pros/cons does everyone else see? One a scale of 1-10, where do  
each of these items sit with you, 10 being highest? If it's above a 6,  
explanation would be beneficial I think.


Chris




On Jan 22, 2009, at 10:22 AM, Evan Schoenberg wrote:

> Background of the thread: Ryan LaMothe emailed feedback expressing a  
> desire to become involved in making Adium for iPhone.
>
> Now that it's clear that GPL apps can be distributed in the App  
> Store, there should be no legal hurdles to such a project existing.  
> The logistics are the least of our worries, but suffice it to say  
> that we can without a problem create an 'Adium' iPhone Developer  
> account and grant all who would need it access to iTunes Connect and  
> provisioning/publishing facilities.
>
> Ryan LaMothe wrote:
>> Hello, my name is Ryan LaMothe and I am a full-time lead software  
>> development engineer and a huge OS X, iPhone and Adium fan.  While  
>> I mostly develop JEE applications for Fortune 500 and government, I  
>> originally cut my teeth in Objective-C using Eiffel for NextStep  
>> and I've been wanting to get involved with a major OS X and/or  
>> iPhone development project for some time now.  Which leads me to  
>> the following questions:
>>
>> 1.  I visited http://trac.adiumx.com/wiki/AdiumForiPhone and read  
>> about the issues and hurdles surrounding a development project such  
>> as Adium for iPhone.
>> 2.  I would like to know how I can get involved in such a project,  
>> specifically as a professional developer, who is interested in  
>> taking a serious look at the code.
>> 3.  I do not have a ton of time on a daily basis to work on the  
>> code, as I have regular full-time employment, but I am interested  
>> in putting in as much time as I could depending on the scope of  
>> work required.
>
> As Colin mentioned on feedback at adiumx.com, the first barrier to  
> overcome is to have libpurple compiled and loading on the iPhone. I  
> expect this will require some cross-compilation skills, especially  
> to get all its dependencies up and running, but I really don't  
> know.  If someone out there is interested in the design of of Adium  
> for iPhone, another first step would be mockups of what it would  
> mean to have such a program - what will be bring to the table which  
> would be Adiumesque and do things that, say, AIM for iPhone doesn't,  
> besides just the multiprotocol aspect of using libpurple?
>
> Cheers,
> Evan
>
> On Jan 19, 2009, at 10:43 PM, Colin Barrett wrote:
>
>> Other than what Eric said, I would suggest getting libpurple  
>> compiling as a static library and linked into a test app that  
>> builds for ARM as a first step.
>
>
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