

Show HN: See what Apps your friends are using on iPhone in real-time - benguild
http://appmap.mobi/

======
alanctgardner2
I don't have an iPhone, but on it's face this seems like a very scary idea.
They say they select from a database, but does that mean that I can whitelist
what apps are shared with the server, or is some random person going to see
everything I do?

Also, the unstyled privacy page is a bit offputting:
<http://appmap.mobi/privacy>

------
Terretta
What I'd like is a log / graph of what apps _I_ am using on _my own_ iPhone,
in an MRU sort and frequency sort.

~~~
AustinGibbons
Try carat (<http://carat.cs.berkeley.edu/>) - shows you over time what apps
are using the most power.

------
jonny_eh
How do they collect this data, technically?

~~~
objclxt
It's a bit of a hack.

There is no way to get hold of a list of installed or runnings apps through
the Cocoa APIs (this is in contrast to Android, where you can obtain finite
information on apps right down to data consumption).

However, there is a way to obtain all current running processes, using the
standard _sysctl_ function[1]. This includes apps that are backgrounded but
not terminated. If you are interested someone on StackOverflow has put
together some sample code (I haven't verified it, but it looks like it should
work)[2].

This is not as useful as it sounds though. You're not getting app metadata,
just process names. The developers behind AppMap will presumably have set up a
database populated with the most popular apps, but will need to keep this
current as more apps come to market.

[1]:
[http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#documentation/System...](http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#documentation/System/Conceptual/ManPages_iPhoneOS/man3/sysctl.3.html)

[2]: [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/10141067/running-apps-
in-...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/10141067/running-apps-in-
background-or-active)

~~~
phoenixy
It's really interesting. Thanks for the detailed explanation. I always
wondered if there's any way to do this.. And it's good to know that Apple is
OK with this kind of hack.

------
hyperenergy
How does this work? iOS has permissions to see other running applications?

~~~
jevinskie
You can use MobileDevice (private framework on OS X) or libimobiledevice to
query lockdownd for a list of installed apps. Of course this only works from a
PC host. Jailbroken apps can directly query lockdownd or traverse the
filesystem if they would like to.

------
TazeTSchnitzel
So it's a geo location-enhanced "most popular apps" list, essentially?

