iPhone - Importing/Exporting App data?

Question

iPhone apps are great for managing or viewing small elements of data however doing mass and/or long data entry or typing is a pain.

For apps that need to have longer dynamic data that can be used on the iPhone but more easily created at the desktop, what sort of options exist for getting data from the desktop to the iPhone app? Are webservices about the only real option? What other simple solutions exist? Like to find a simplified way for moving data back and forth between iPhone and desktop (Windows and Mac)

Answer 1

I think the short answer is yes, the only sensible option are webservices. There is no iTunes sync plugin that you can use so your options are all network based.

Other than webservices, you might also like to consider a client-side program that your iPhone app finds and connects to using Bonjour. The obvious disadvantage here is that you have to write client apps (preferably two, one for Windows the other for Mac) and educate your users on how to download and install them. Also you're forcing your users to sync using WiFi.

Here's hoping that next weeks iPhone 3.0 announcement includes iTunes sync plugins...

Answer 2

One option is to turn the device in to a web server and allow the desktop app to upload directly to the device, side-stepping the necessity of a third-party server.

Take a look at CocoaHTTPServer for an implementation of the an iPhone web server that supports downloading and uploading files or data, POST and authentication. You can directly connect to the device using its ip address, or using http://iphone.local in certain circumstances.