Okay I don't understand why you feel that because one iPhone user you met somewhere is an idiot means that all iPhone users are the same, claiming 98.7% need to grow up is a ridiculous statement and again only goes to cause offence.

If we can keep objective, I want the application for my own personal use, I.e. to save my monthly O2 bill as we all know that the phone networks don't include 08 numbers in your inclusive minutes.

I proposed that myself and one other do the bulk of the work, asking for the site owners permission was not just a curtsy but a necessity as I didn't want to violate the owners copyright or cause unnecessary load scraping their server.

I am investigating this for the community because if I was only working on this for my own benefit I would just go ahead and write the app which scrapes the screen and only use it my self, not sharing with others which is what I want to do.

While I can understand the need for security which is why the API like most would require a secret key for access embedded in the iPhone application it would be hard for others to access the code, and would be something which could easily be changed with each new release, or could be a code generated using other information or additionally requiring users to sign up to the service.

The API should not as you have highlighted by a public free for all service otherwise clone sites would appear and that would affect the community, this site has something no other has, a good and known brand, a full database and a community.

The suggestion that I want to make financial gain from this application is stupid, no offence to the site owner but this site is very clearly here to make money at least for the hosting if nothing else, and why not but I personally do not want to make money out of this application, I would offer it free of charge and if the site owner wished a pay pal link would be possible, the cost of developing this app is low but to put it on the App Store would cost me money, which I am willing to pay to get this app out there.

I don't want to continue this argument, its pointless, we know your against the idea and I am for it, the argument is simply descending into spiteful comments and is unproductive, we shall wait and see what the site owner says, if he declines I will work on an application for my own use which scrapes the site, thus not causing any loss to him. I am just looking to share what I do with the community in a way which doesn't affect the owners copyright.

well thanks very much apple for thinking different for a change. It did occour to me that this might be an issue but it's totally unfair.

I guess a web app it is then.

I think the iPhone owners have got a bit carried away.

As for what's been shown so far, my understanding is that Cupertino and Glendale and the other places are in California. Maybe a bit more writing software than copying pictures (which I notice are about 150 kilobytes each) ...

It  may surprise the iPhone fans, but there are other phones with data facilities on them, and even on the other main networks! And it's already possible to view a webpage to do a search of the database here. It's even possible to copy a number off the page (though not in full when I did it earlier)

But even though for example the OperaMini browser works pretty well ( and only uses a few k of data - please note), I agree with the last post that a simple page for wap browsers would help the most people. Not everyone is on O2, and not all of those have an iPhone.

But, without me knowing what the problems are, clearly so far nobody has managed to come up with a method that satisfies the concerns of the site owner here.

Perhaps the amateur iPhone application writers should save their bandwidth-wasting or carrier policy circumventing skills for other projects.

The owner of this site is very reluctant to allow anyone to use the data, in part because he generates revenue from the adverts on the site. Unfortunately, the site has changed very little, if at all, over the last few years, and there seems to be little interest in his improving it or producing a mobile version, despite there being a lot of expertise among the members and plenty of people willing to do the work for free. Your best bet is to contact the owner (user "Forum Admin") directly.

The second, very valid point in my opinion is that it's better to develop a service using web standards, rather than producing an application that's limited to one proprietary platform (the iPhone). Maybe you didn't really mean you wanted something for the iPhone specifically, but it's worrying enough if people now use "iPhone app" as if it were a generic term for "mobile website".

sorry but I just read this:
Quote:


'bandwidth-enhacing' would be more accurate - the saynoto0870 web page contains a whole lot more data than an API would and that's not even including the images that the web page comes with.

compare this (which is what an open API might present):

<resp>
   <t>company name</t>
   <n>0870123123</n>
   <n>0207123123</n>
</resp>

to the source of this web page (go ahead and look - view, page source)

and as for Quote:
I suppose that's a joke because in it's original context this entire 0870 web site would be classed as carrier poilicy circumvention.

I'm really shocked at how negative the responses have been to someone willing to donate their time to increasing the number of people who can benefit from this site, surely that's what we all want - as many people as possible to use alternatives to 0870 numbers?

I think this subject is getting rather silly, I posted up some mock-up images to share, 150k where that came from I don't know but the amount of text being transferred would be in the bytes range not the kilobytes range, so there is no need to worry there, and even if Apple say no to a native app we could still develop a web app for the iphone which would be mostly css and would require a single gif image 1px wide by 20-30 px high in b&w to get the nice bar across the top hardly a high resouloution image. The rest is CSS.

Anyway I have given up asking the site owner for permission and have moved on to other things this is not really up for discussion any more, the answer is the site owner doesn't care and I am fed up of trying to convince people that this is a good idea, clearly no one wants such an application so there we go.

Well funnily enough I was suggesting that a version for the iphone be built, and thus for all phones which was a stripped down version as we discovered we could not build the app , however no one was interested they are all just ******* bitching about stuff with out reading.