I started playing with YouTube back in 2005 and didn’t really get it.  I posted a couple of videos, but I wasn’t a consumer (i.e. I didn’t watch other people’s videos unless someone blogged about one).  Fast forward to this year and add the Apple TV to the mix.  I bought Apple TVs for the office and the house and found myself showing off the Apple TV by playing videos from YouTube.

Soon we started turning on YouTube (via Apple TV) any time we had a few people over.  We would each pick a couple of ‘funny’ videos to play and let the system rip.  It wasn’t like watching traditional TV, something we would never consider doing with guests, instead it was a different experience.  The clips are short.  The content is kitsch. The experience in a word is casual.  It didn’t hamper our conversation, it enriched the content.  YouTube + AppleTV = Great for Small Parties.

Now with my iPhone I find myself doing the same thing.  People want to see how it works and after I show them the visual voice mail I show off YouTube.  People are amazed.  YouTube finally makes sense for me.  Will I watch hours of YouTube?  Never.  Will I watch 2-3 three minute clips per week?  Definitely.

Web 2.0 junkies, we have the perfect iPhone site for you ~ GetLeaflets.  Mike Arrington pointed out the site earlier today in a post titled, “GetLeaflets: Must-Have iPhone App”.  Very nice work.  Note to guys: this is what I was talking about!

We are playing with the latest IM solution for the iPhone - FlickIM.  Jury is still out, but it works…

iPhoneDevCamp was an excellent event. Thanks to Raven, Whurley and Dom for putting it together, we really enjoyed it. Over 51 applications were started or built over the weekend including one built by the Big in Japan team. We decided to build a tiny application that would use the ability the iPhone has to determine the orientation of its screen. Based on how you held your iPhone you would signify your agreement or disagreement with the speaker. We call it iPhoneVote and ironically it was voted one of the ‘top ten apps‘ from the event.

Other cool applications included: AppMarks, PickleView, Fluther, The Pool, itunes Remote-o-Matic, Tilt and moPhaic (read about them here). The coolest hack from the event was called the Fluid Navigation Hack as described by Andrew:

Have you ever heard of Firebug? It’s the absolute best Firefox extension for developers. If you are building applications for the iPhone, it might be your greatest debugging tool. But Firebug for the iPhone, iBug.js, is not my favorite app. It’s Joe’s liguid navigation hack. Almost 25% of all apps presented at iPhoneDevCamp used it. Hewitt’s Javascript and CSS package mirror the iPhone’s iPod application, and use a fluid navigation scheme that will become commonplace to any iPhone user. This is my favorite app because so many iPhone hackers used it this weekend as a backbone for their application. This framework will work nicely for future iPhone development because it’s lightweight, elegant, and comfortable for anyone trying to navigate their Apple smart phone. The source code is available here. This would be my starting point if I were to develop an iPhone app.

Created with Paul’s flickrSLiDR.

Just a peek at iPhoneDevCamp:

The iPhoneDevCamp opening reception is just about over, but iPhone news is coming out at record pace.  Check out the flickrstream here.  See you tomorrow at 9:30AM.  News?  The iPhoneInterface tool is out as well as reported by the iPhone Hacking News:

We have successfully written a tool named iPhoneInterface allowing for some basic manipulation of things on the phone, and are releasing it tonight. We are including source code so you can understand the techniques we have used so far. We will be expanding the functionality of this tool significantly tomorrow. The best news is that we have prototype code that allows the ability to:

• Run any desired application already residing on the phone.
• Control what processes run on the phone (currently implementation is very hackish)
• Move files around on the phone
• Enable viewing of verbose information during the restore process
• Activate the phone without iTunes and without a token

Note: Not all of the features listed above are necessarily included in tonight’s initial release.

We are continuing significant work on this tool and will probably have similarly worthwhile updates tomorrow.

Apple and AT&T just identified 500,000 alpha geeks for marketers around the world.  What does that mean for  your brand? Piper Jaffray is reporting that Apple sold more than 500,000 iPhones this weekend according to Tom Krazit of Crave.  Here are the details:

• 95% of buyers in NYC and SFO bought the 8GB model (versus the 4GB)
• 50% of buyers were new customers for AT&T (Verizon’s CEO is kicking himself)

If you can engage the iPhone community it means you can have access to 500,000 early adopters.  How?  Start building tools specific to the needs of the ‘instant community’.  How?  Hire guys like us or come to the iPhoneDevCamp in San Francisco this week.

Have you started ‘hacking’ on the iPhone yet?  We are pushing on the development pretty hard in preparation for iPhoneDevCamp next week.  The ajaxian folks have compiled several ‘notes and quirks’ with regard to development on the iPhone:

• Poking around the DOM, I don’t see any special objects, with the possible exception of window.offscreenBuffering (set to true).
• Bookmarklets work, although you have to go through the bookmarks menu to get to them.
• Safari crashes are handled gracefully - the main screen fades back in, and you can jump right back into Safari. It will then load page you were visiting when it crashed.
• Drag and drop, and other behaviors based on picking up mousemove events, don’t work. CSS-based element drag and drop doesn’t work either. Dragging one finger around the iPhone’s version of Safari causes the window to scroll, and that’s it. I assume that scroll events do work. I’m sure somebody is already working on a version of drag and drop based on window scrolling.
• For documents with no width set, the iPhone uses a default width of 980px.
• You do not get “mousedown” when you touch the screen. You get “mousedown” and “mouseup” at the same time when you release your finger. The “mousemove” event does not seem to fire at all. There is no way to handle double-clicking because that is the action for zooming, and calling event.preventDefault() doesn’t seem to override that.

Greg (in New York) and Robert (in Half Moon Bay) are eagerly awaiting the launch of the iPhone.  Both are waiting in line at the Apple store a full day before release:

[via]

The iPhoneDevCamp is really making some waves. I talked to a reporter from MSNBC about the event and have been trading voice mails with Business Week. Check out a few of the articles about the event:

The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW): Making the Web a Better Place for iPhone (06/20/07)
Wired: Hack Up Some Web Apps at iPhone Dev Camp (06/19/07)
iPhoneAtlas: Interview with Raven Zachary, founder of iPhone Developers camp (06/19/07)
AppleInsider: iPhone developers camp slated for early July (06/19/07)
Ars Technica: iPhoneDevCamp to whip developers into shape (06/19/07)
iPhonic: Unofficial iPhone developers boot camp to bring Web 2.0 apps (06/19/07)
A great way to muse: iPhone first shipment will followed by iPhone Developer Camp (06/19/07)
QJ.net Apple News: Make applications for iPhone at the iPhone Developers Camp (06/19/07)
intomobile: The unofficial iPhone developers bootcamp aims to bring us more iPhone Web 2.0 apps this summer (06/19/07)
iLounge: iPhone Developers Camp coming July 6-8 (06/19/07)
Mac OS Ken Podcast: 06.18.2007 Podcast (06/18/07)
Texas Startup Blog: iPhone Update (06/18/07)
Podcasting News: iPhone Developers Camp Coming July 6th (06/18/07)
TECHPopuli: Techpopuli Podcast #21 (06/18/07)
iPhone Atlas: iPhone developers conference to be held (06/18/07)
iPhone Matters: Introducing iPhone Developers Camp (06/18/07)
TechMeme: iPhone Developers Camp (06/17/07)
Business 2.0: Boot Camp for iPhone Developers (06/17/07)
Dylan Schiemann: iPhone bar camp (06/17/07)
My iTablet: Join the iPhone Developers Camp (06/17/07)
theiPhoneblog BarCamp, iPhone Developers Camp (06/16/07)
Big in Japan: iPhone Developers Camp! (06/16/07)
Digg: Introducing iPhone Developers Camp (06/16/07)

The Barcamp crew is getting together to create ‘iPhone Developers Camp‘ the week following the public release of the iPhone. Check out the wiki and get involved. If you would, Digg it for us here. The event (from the wiki):

iPhone Developers Camp is an upcoming gathering, inspired by BarCamp, SuperHappyDevHouse, and MacHack, to develop web-based applications and optimize web sites for iPhone. It is a non-commercial event, organized by volunteers, with attendance free to all. By the completion of the weekend event, a number of iPhone-ready web applications and web sites will be launched to the public. The event will be held in California, and out-of-town guests are welcome.

Attendees will include web designers, developers, testers, and iPhone owners, all working together over the weekend to improve the web experience for iPhone. Development projects will include both solo and team efforts. While some attendees will wish to work solo during the event, we encourage attendees to team up, based on expertise, to work in ad-hoc project development teams. All attendees should be prepared to work on a development project during the event. You do not need to own an iPhone to attend (although, a large number of iPhones at the event will make the development and testing process much easier).

Attendees will be able to:

• Create new web applications for iPhone.
• Optimize existing web applications for iPhone.
• Migrate Dashboard Widgets to web-based widgets for iPhone.
• Test and optimize web sites for iPhone.