iPhone and the Semantic Web

June 11th, 2007

I downloaded Safari, and it works quite nicely on Windows. What an interesting development in the broadest sense of the term.

I also followed some of the discussion about Ajax development for the iPhone, which again is of interest to an Ajax developer. One problem, though: the iphone costs 500.00 for the low end phone, 600.00 for the higher end.

I have a cellphone, I have an iPod. I like new toys as much as the next person, but even if I could afford it, I'd have a hard time shelling out that kind of money for a device which really isn't best of breed for both. Other than the bigger video screen.

It would be appropriate to cover in my next book, though, since its focus is on web graphics. Perhaps I can get O'Reilly to shell out for an iPhone I can 'borrow'.

I wonder, it supports the web, but can it support a semantic web? Will it have a tiny little RDF engine? Can it do OWL? How much knowledge can fit into 3GB and change?

If we can squeeze RDF onto the device in addition to a bitty browser and Ajax, I have dibs on the term iKnow.

Comments
1
Arthur - 8:30 pm 6/11/2007

OWL?

Object Windows Library?

2
Charles - 8:47 pm 6/11/2007

Every Apple product has RDF.

3
Arthur - 8:54 pm 6/11/2007

I downloaded Safari, and it works quite nicely on Windows. What an interesting development in the broadest sense of the term.

I find that both Safari and IE render fonts with a bit more weight, which makes the output painful to read. Try to read MetaFilter in Safari, and then compare the same site with Firefox. (But then, I wonder why MetaFilter uses bold font for links…).

4
Phil - 4:22 am 6/12/2007

Arthur - Web Ontology Language. (Yes, I know. Be thankful it's not SWOL.)

5
Bud Gibson - 7:26 am 6/12/2007

My question is whether it will support AIR (ex Apollo). BTW, Ajax support strikes me as a brilliant way of opening the device to 3rd party developers. All buzz suggests this thing is supposed to be an advanced Dick-Tracy-like communicator. Ajax is really about a more interactive web-standard way of accessing data. Ajax fits, and it does not force Apple to open up the innards of the iPhone to get 3rd party contributions.

6
madame l. - 10:45 am 6/12/2007

maybe you can trade some food for one from scoble.

7
mobilejones - 4:54 pm 6/12/2007

"How much knowledge can fit into 3GB and change?"

The $500 version is reportedly 4GB and the $600 iPhone is 8GB.

8
Shelley - 8:31 pm 6/12/2007

Charles, that's funny on the RDF. As for the OWL, and what the acro stands for, maybe Windows is right. Maybe Safari was ported to Windows because iPhone runs Vista.

Huh? Huh? What do you think?

Bud, I can't believe Adobe renamed Apollo AIR. But yup, we all should have known that Apple would not open iPhone's innards. That is _not_ the Apple way.

Madame, I'm actually holding out for a Seagate drive from Scoble.

Mobile, the 3 Gig and change reflects the amount of space taken up by the initial software installation.

9
Doug Alder - 9:14 pm 6/12/2007

I'm glad it's working for you. I downloaded it last night and it opens but then it either freezes or doesn't give me and options/menus (I'm assuming there are some) - so far all I can say is it's a piece of cr*p on this Core 2 duo Dell 1GB RAM laptop.

10
Bud Gibson - 10:58 pm 6/12/2007

So Shelley, I was reading another blog on Planet Intertwingly, and I had to agree with that commenter when he said, let's say Apple had opened up the iphone, you'd have to know cocoa, etc. This way, the reach is actually broader.

Doing it the Apple way, the phone might just be more open, if by open you mean accessible to a larger group of people.

I found a link, http://rc3.org/2007/06/on_safari.php

11
Charles - 4:34 pm 6/13/2007

I don't see what the problem is with no 3rd party local apps on the iPhone. The iPhone will be an always-connected net device, it seems unnecessary to pack everything in the phone when you can just grab it online. No portable device can hope to compete with the vast resources available to online apps.

I am reminded of an old story from Danny Hillis in the days of the Connection Machine. He was going around to big corporations trying to sell the CM and WAIS for knowledge mining, but it was a hard sell, he'd only sold one unit so far, to Dow Jones News & Information Service. One day he did his demo to a CEO, and the guy said "well that's nothing new, you don't need a supercomputer to do that, I can do that on my little IBM PC." Hillis asked the CEO to show him, so they went to his office, the CEO fired up his machine, launched his dial-up software, the modem screeched, and connected to… the WAIS server at Dow Jones News & Information Service.

12
Shelley - 8:51 pm 6/13/2007

Doug, true it really isn't much more than a novelty. But it does run SVG, which is a step up.

Bud, I don't see any harm in Apple's approach. And as Charles demonstrate so well with that great anecdote, perhaps RIA isn't the real way of the future after all.

Thanks to all those who have contributed to the discussion. Comments are now closed, but you can contact the author of the post directly.

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