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Friend Book to Beam Your iPhone's Contact Data with a Shake
Posted by Gina Trapani at 6:49 AM on July 10, 2008
One of the new apps slated for release during this Friday's iPhone 2.0 launch is Friend Book, a "super Address Book" that promises to make dealing with your iPhone contacts much easier and fun. Made by Tapulous, a new company dedicated to iPhone/iPod touch apps, Joel Johnson at Boing Boing describes Friend Book's "holy crap" feature:
The coolest feature without a doubt is the new "Handshake": put two iPhones running Friend Book together, shake them up and down, and the personal contact information of the phones' owners will be beamed through the net to the paired phones. Handshake doesn't work through a device-to-device connection, but instead passes location data back to Tapulous' servers — two shaking phones in the same location means it's time to swap information.Friend Book, along with the company's other two apps, Tap Tap Revenge and Twinkle will be free to download from Apple's new App Store on Friday. Hit the play button to see Friend Book in action.
Tags: address book | app store | contacts | friend book | iphone | organise
Comments (AU Comments · US Comments)
There are currently no AU comments for this post.
robmcbell
Posted 7:24 AM 10/7/08
and what if me and my 25 iPhone 3G friends are in a mosh pit? would that crash the servers, or just make us all business partners?
robmcbell
suburbancowboy
Posted 7:22 AM 10/7/08
Yeah. What then?
How close of a proximity do they have to be?
suburbancowboy
aront
Posted 7:21 AM 10/7/08
@PiersRippey: It looks like from the video the phones have to be EXTREMELY close to each other.
Um, and "holy crap"
aront
PiersRippey
Posted 7:09 AM 10/7/08
What if, like, you're jogging at the gym with your iPhone in your pocket, and someone else is too, and you accidentally swap info. What then, huh?
PiersRippey
Deprong Mori
Posted 8:12 AM 10/7/08
"Hey, bring your iPhone into the bedroom, I want to show you something..."
Deprong Mori
ludwigschubert
Posted 8:05 AM 10/7/08
You'd definitely want to use Bluetooth for that.
I guess it's Apple not providing the acces to BT what renders this impossible, though.
ludwigschubert
collinturner.com
Posted 7:50 AM 10/7/08
Um...is it just me...or does this kinda sound like it could be an iPhone circle jerk?
'jus sayin...
collinturner.com
jarhead
Posted 8:22 AM 10/7/08
@robmcbell: iPhone mosh pit... nice...
Supposedly, iTunes 7.7 should be out within the next few hours...
jarhead
PiersRippey
Posted 8:55 AM 10/7/08
@aront:
Well the GPS isn't that precise, so I imagine there's a margin of error that the app would have to take into account, which could lead to all sorts of hilarious mishaps.
PiersRippey
spimoles
Posted 9:27 AM 10/7/08
This app sounds really cool. It's innovative ideas like these that keep software development fresh. The handshake feature is a gimmick and hopefully they give users the ability to initiate transfers without it. Usually I skip by these iphone posts but +1 for this one.
spimoles
zac.ice9
Posted 10:27 AM 10/7/08
@PiersRippey: Im thinking the proximity isnt so much the issue as, I would assume, both phones would need to have that application open on their iphone...
zac.ice9
zac.ice9
Posted 10:26 AM 10/7/08
@Deprong Mori: HA! amazing.
zac.ice9
zac.ice9
Posted 10:25 AM 10/7/08
haha... I cant wait for the wii like horror stories: "oh no, I shook my iphone too violently and it just slipped out of my hand"...
I do like the "face-dial"... though, I wish they could have come up with a bit more original of a name...
zac.ice9
Jason
Posted 11:12 AM 10/7/08
So on the first Palm device I bought (in 1997) if I held down the phone button it would beam my contact info to another palm in the immediate area. Pardon me if it sounds like 11 years later an iPhone can do the same thing except I have to shake it?
Alrighty, then.
Jason
natenovs
Posted 12:39 PM 10/7/08
@zac.ice9: it probably works by generating the key based off of the movement of the phone. that way both phones need to be moving the exact same way or else the keys won't match.
natenovs
ICEBreaker
Posted 11:48 PM 10/7/08
@natenovs: Your argument sounds very convincing. Otherwise, when a hot girl starts shaking phones with a successful suitor, all the surrounding guys would try to act in unison.
Using GPS to locate the phones? As an owner of a GPS phone, my experience is that I have to spend 10-20 seconds with line of sight to an expanse of the sky to get a lock. So how this is supposed to be done at a moment's notice and being indoors is puzzling.
Anyway, looks very cool...
ICEBreaker
Clarko
Posted 10:33 AM 10/7/08
Thousands of people handshaking at once won't be a problem -- the algorithm for the handshaking is pretty strict.
Clarko
Clarko
Posted 10:30 AM 10/7/08
Thousands of people shaking their phones at once won't cause any accidental card-swapping -- the algorithm is pretty strict.
Clarko
Firax
Posted 10:15 AM 11/7/08
That guy commenting on the video JUST woke up!
Firax
ajlafontaine
Posted 3:38 PM 11/7/08
If it's set for release then why is it not on the appstore right now? Will it miraculously show up tomorrow?
ajlafontaine
journeyguy
Posted 3:32 PM 12/7/08
Neither Friendbook nore Twinkle are currently on the App Store.
journeyguy
mrcamuti
Posted 8:09 PM 12/7/08
Umm I hate to be a downer but this is a blatant ripoff of the accelerometer based RFID work Nokia has been demoing for about a year. You tap your phone to the surface you want to interact with and it either sends or receives the necessary data. In the example given of exchanging contact info, you'd tap the phones together and it would auto-trade the correct data.
mrcamuti