iPhone Journal – Mobile Blogging From Your iPhone on AOL Journal – Part 1

I sincerely believe blogging can save America. - John Jay Hooker

Over the next few weeks I plan on focusing on the development of iPhone Journal, a mobile blogging web application, optimized for the iPhone browser. Why a web application? Currently the only officially supported development for the iPhone is through web applications. A few weeks ago Apple has announced that an iPhone SDK, for native iPhone applications, would be released by mid-Februrary. So until then it’s only web applications for the iPhone.

I’m looking for community input for this web application! My initial plan is for iPhone Journal to provide features to: post to your blog; manage your blog posts; and read your postings, and those on your AOL buddy list. AOL Journal utilizes the Open Blog API which allows you application to create, delete, and update blogs, entries, and comments. You can read about the Open Blog API at http://dev.aol.com/aolblogs_api

This installment will focus on two key aspects to help us get started. First, we’ll go through the process of creating your own blog at the AOL Journal web site. Second, we’ll look at the development tools we’ll be using to create the iPhone Journal.

Create a Blog at AOL Journal

AOL Journal provides a place for you to be heard! You can simply create and manage your blog from the AOL People Connection web site. To create your own blog, you start by going to the AOL Journal web site at http://peopleconnection.aol.com/blogs. As shown in Figure 1, click on the Create a Blog link.

Figure 1. The AOL Journal web site.

You’ll need to login with your AOL account. Once you’ve logged in, you can create your blog as shown in Figure 2. You’ll need to decide if you want to make it public or private, give it a name, pick a community to categorize the blog, and for now you can use the simple setup. That’s it!

Figure 2. The Create a Journal web page.

As shown in Figure 3, you’re now ready to begin blogging!

Figure 3. Your Blog Page!

iPhone Development Environment

I’ll be using Aptana for the the development of iPhone Journal. As shown in Figure 4, the Aptana IDE (Integrated Development Environment) is an Eclipse based, open source, development environment targeted to building web applications, with a focus on HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Aptana includes an iPhone Development Plug-in that provides web developers with a set of tools that assist in the development of iPhone optimized web applications.

Figure 4. The Aptana IDE.

As shown in Figure 5, Aptana provides a free iPhone Development Plugin at http://www.aptana.com/iphone/. The plugin provides the ability to preview your iPhone applications, in addition to debugging and logging support.

Figure 5. The Aptana iPhone plug-in.

Where To Next

In Part 2, I’ll start to discuss the actual development of iPhone Journal. But I want to hear from you! What features would you like to see in the iPhone Journal web application? Do you have any iPhone development tips to share? Let me know in the comments below!