Note: MoosTrax works on devices running iOS 4+.

iPhone Support/Help
MoosTrax iTunes Link

• View a list of all of your devices
• View the current location of any device on your account.
• Enhanced battery usage through the “Conserve Battery” feature.

The beta is still open, so send an e-mail to moostraxsupport@gmail.com to join.

I’m looking for beta testers…and then soon I’ll be pushing it to the App Store.

Applying for the beta

Please e-mail moostraxsupport@gmail.com with your iPhone’s UDID.

For information on finding the UDID, go here: http://www.geekology.co.za/blog/2009/07/how-to-check-your-iphones-udid-from-itunes/

Screenshots

There are now hundreds of thousands of applications built for mobile phones, with every use case you can imagine. But even with the growth and advances of the past few years, the industry is still in its youth.

Apple, with its enormous success, is still constantly on the front page because of its questionable practice — sole control of the iPhone platform. Unlike desktop operating systems, such as Windows or Mac OS X, where the user is in complete control of the operating system, the iPhone is a jail, with Apple deciding what can come in and go out.

The App Store, the only way for a developer to target an iPhone, or a user to install an application on the iPhone, is in constant censorship mode. Certain API’s are not allowed and questionable content is put to rest.

It is time that Apple realizes that it is not only the hardware in the iPhone, or the software that powers it, that makes it a powerful force in the mobile phone market. The power is in the apps, the platform, and in the imaginations of developers.

Even though there are many applications for the iPhone, there could be so much more. The iPhone is a powerful device that can be used to provide a platform for mobile applications in every industry possible. Medical, industrial, retail — the list goes on. But as long as Apple is in control of what happens on the iPhone, developers will never be able to harness the full potential of such a beautiful device.

Apple now has the ability to turn the iPhone, and the new iPad, into a commodity device. The PC of the mobile world. My intuition tells me that Apple won’t let this happen. They prefer to maintain complete control of their platform, and while making it a premium and luxury item, they stop it from attaining the growth that it most definitely can achieve.

The future is in Apple’s hands — and they have the ability to make it an awesome place.

Getting Started

I am going to assume that you have znc installed, and you know how to use it. Next, we need to install the Colloquy ZNC module, so that Colloquy can communicate with ZNC (and allow us to have push functionality). See this page for complete instructions.

The module for ZNC accepts commands from the Colloquy client, notably information on push notifications(device token, etc,.).

Modifying the Colloquy Mobile Source

Next, we need to download and build the source. Once you have downloaded the source and loaded up the Mobile Colloquy project in Xcode, we need to make a few modifications.

Certificates

To run any application on an actual iPhone device, it must be signed. Login to your Developer portal on Apple’s site and generate a certificate (and make sure to enable push). Download the certificate and install it. Next, assign that certificate to the Colloquy Mobile Project. Project…Edit Active Target. Make sure that under the Properties tab, you have the same Identifier name that you used when generating the certificate. Go to Build, and then Code Signing Identity and select the certificate.

Modifying the source

Next, find the CQConnectionsController.m file (Controllers/Connections) and change the following line from:

and change it to:

This will make the client tell the Colloquy ZNC module to send push notifications to our custom server.

Build the project and put it onto your device.

Push Server

I wrote a simple python script that waits on port 7906, receives a connection from the Colloquy ZNC module, and then pushes a notification to your phone (via Apple’s Push Service).

The script requires your push certificate and private key file so it can authenticate to Apple’s push service.

Export the push certificate and private key as a .p12 from Keychain Access. After that, we have to convert it to PEM format:

where key.p12 is the file exported from Keychain access.

After that, you may need to put that certs.pem file on your server that you are running ZNC on.

Installing the Colloquy Push Server

Run the following to install the Colloquy Push Server:

Next, run the command colloquypushsrv.py to make sure installation was successful.

The usage looks like this:

Now, let’s start the push server in the foreground. Make sure to specify the full path to the pem file we created.

Conclusion

Finally, connect to your ZNC server with the custom built Colloquy Mobile. Your iPhone should register with the ZNC module. After, exit the Colloquy Mobile application and pull up Colloquy (or any other IRC client) on your desktop. Send yourself a message, and see if you get the push notification!

I realize this process may not be completely clear, so if you have any questions, I would be happy to walk you through the process.

Also, I just wrote this up today, so it may not be production ready .

Enjoy!

When I discovered the aforemetioned, I realized that the key to being able to take advantage of a closed platform(as a software developer, and in this case, the iPhone platform), is to strike a deal with the carrier and put some money in their pockets.

And as a consumer, if I want to run a background application on MY iPhone, which I payed good money for, I need to pay the carrier an additional monthly fee(in this case, per application), and HOPE that the application I wish to background, has a deal with the carrier(so I can pay them money, of course).

Honestly, it is disgusting what is happening in this world. Patents are ubiquitous and exclusivity is everywhere. The DMCA and similar laws cripple consumers’ rights to take control of our purchases.

Attempting to jailbreak an iPhone (and giving a user access to his own phone) can void your warranty. Why? Because Apple doesn’t want you to have control over the iPhone. They want you to use the iTunes store. They want your experience to be guided by their extensive expertise.

I’ll definitely be posting more on this subject soon, but its late now, and I need to sleep.

I will be adding push notifications soon so that when someone pulls up the Live Tracking page on the MoosTrax website, you will receive a notification on your iPhone requesting you to update your location. That is really all I can do for now, as background applications are still not permitted.

If anyone wants to help me test this first version, please email moostraxsupport@gmail.com.

Screenshots:

ApplePush Hackage

ApplePush Documentation

When using the library, you must use an SSL tunnel, because Haskell’s SSL support is incomplete. I use stunnel4, which works great, and offloads the SSL processing as well. Here are some basic instructions on getting started with the library.

Stunnel setup

Download your certificate from Apple. If you are using a Mac, export the certificate (.cer) into a directory. Also, export your private key as a .p12 file. Stunnel needs the certificate/key in one file, in the following format:

Run the following commands to convert and concatenate your certificate/private key.

Create a file called tun.conf, which will configure stunnel.

This will bind stunnel to the local port 2195, and tunnel traffic via SSL to gateway.sandbox.push.apple.com:2195.

Next run the following command to start stunnel.

ApplePush Haskell Library

Let’s update our cabal packages, and then install.

In addition to the library, an application, called applepushtest, is also installed so that you can test the library and your SSL tunnel setup. Let’s try it out.

You must pass a parameter, device_token, to the application. This tells the library which device to send the notification to. This token must be retrieved in your client application using registerForRemoteNotificationTypes:. Once you have your token, run the following command.

To use the library in your application, check out Main.hs for an example.

No automatic location updates

The iPhone OS does not allow applications to run in the background, which means MoosTrax cannot check your location and send it to the server at a fixed interval.

Push Notifications aren’t the whole solution

MoosTrax could send a push notification to your phone, telling it to send a location update to the server, but unfortunately it requires user interaction. It wouldn’t be too convenient to have your phone vibrating every few minutes asking you to update your location.

Manual updates

Initially, MoosTrax for iPhone will have support for sending location updates to the server manually when you open the application.

Stay tuned

Hopefully, within time, Apple will make the push notification functionality more advanced so that MoosTrax can be as powerful as it is on other platforms, such as Android and BlackBerry. For now, stay tuned for the iPhone application. I am waiting to be approved in the iPhone developer program and then you should see the application in the iTunes store soon.

The following example shows the usage for the RSS class. Basically, the class creates an NSArray of news items, and each object in the array is an NSDictionary. The dictionary contains the element name as the key.

You can download the sample project and the RSS class files here: http://www.tech9computers.com/iPhoneRSS.zip