[R-SIG-Mac] iPad?

[Matthew Cohen]

Could you explain what remote-GUI would entail?  If I allow remote connections to my desktop at home, I can run R through one of the iPhone ssh apps.  But it obviously doesn't allow graphic outputs to display on the iPhone, or syntax highlighting.  Plus, switching back and forth between a script and the console was awkward, and editing data files more or less impossible.  Would remote-GUI be a similar solution, but one that addresses some or all of of those issues?  Or am I mis-inferring?  This would definitely be better than nothing...  Do you think it would be possible to implement something like this but also have it be able to access csv files stored on the iPad (and thus editable by Numbers running on the iPad)?

I think I'd prefer some local R functionality on a hypothetical iPad app, even if it's just a vanilla installation without any packages.  One possible solution to the packages issue would be to create different flavors of R apps, each containing different combinations of packages...  Sort of like how for many of the navigation apps, you have to buy a new one for each city...?

Just thinking out loud.

  
On Jan 30, 2010, at 11:55 AM, Simon Urbanek wrote:

> On Jan 30, 2010, at 2:00 AM, Byron Ellis wrote:
> 
>> Erm... Not so difficult, the iPhone toolchain is using gcc and it wouldn't be hard to make an ARM gfortran... I think Simon did on a lark when the iPhone came out.
>> 
> 
> Indeed, R has no crucial issues on arm - the support is there from the times of the iPhone and it works with the stock Apple SDK. The usability issue was the main reason to not pursue this further. That is different for the iPad as it has a multi-core CPU, better FPU and a decent screen with a keyboard so it would make much more sense. Clearly, we'd have to add a UIKit  implementation of Quartz and maybe an UIKit console, but it certainly more reasonable than on the iPhone.
> 
> That said, I still think the more sensible approach is the remote-GUI one (Byron is the expert on this ;)).
> 
> 
>> The real problem is actually getting it onto the App Store since R is not allowed given current rules (no programming languages). Interestingly, if you were to use R to build an application that was NOT a programming language, that would be fine. (there are Smalltalk and Mono-based Apps in the store).
>> 
> 
> I don't think the programming language would be the main concern (that's something we could talk to Apple about - they usually like scientific apps), but I suspect they may have more objections to the dynamic linking that R uses - I don't think they would let us download/use packages.
> 
> Cheers,
> Simon
> 
> 
>> On Fri, Jan 29, 2010 at 10:45 PM, David Winsemius
>> <dwinsemius at comcast.net> wrote:
>>> 
>>> On Jan 29, 2010, at 11:06 PM, Matthew Cohen wrote:
>>> 
>>>> I think it might be worthwhile to think about getting R to work on the
>>>> iPad, especially if it can access iWork/Numbers spreadsheets...  I realize
>>>> someone brought up trying this on the iPhone a couple of years back, and no
>>>> one was able to figure out what the point would be.  But R on the iPad seems
>>>> like it would be genuinely useful...
>>>> 
>>>> I'm not sure that I have much to contribute in terms of making this
>>>> happen, but I'm wondering if anyone who is familiar with the iPhone SDK
>>>> (especially anyone who has played around with 3.2) knows how feasible it
>>>> would be...
>>> 
>>> Show us an open-source C and Fortran compiler for the iPad.
>>> 
>>> --
>>> 
>>> David Winsemius, MD
>>> Heritage Laboratories
>>> West Hartford, CT
>>> 
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>> 
>> 
>> 
>> -- 
>> Byron Ellis (byron.ellis at gmail.com)
>> "Oook" -- The Librarian
>> 
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>> 
> 
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