FileMaker Mobile for the iPhone
I didn’t mention this in my DevCon 2008 recap but one of the other new tools that was previewed in the foyer and hallways of DevCon was the new FMTouch. Think of FMTouch as FileMaker Mobile for the Apple iPhone or iTouch, but much better. The relational capabilities of FMTouch is something long time FileMaker Mobile (now discontinued) users have been wanting for years. FMTouch, whilst limited to the Apple iPhone and iTouch, does a great job in transferring data between your iPhone and your copy of FileMaker on your desktop computer. Like FileMaker Mobile the data is not live but synced on demand – the iPhone just needs to be on your local network using the built in WiFi or you can setup port forwarding to sync remotely.
It works via a plugin and does require the use of FileMaker Pro Advanced to create the Database Design Report that gets downloaded to the iPhone to create the database structure on the iPhone. Databuzz can help you if you don’t have a copy of FileMaker Pro Advanced but need to create the DDR to get FMTouch up and running.
Databuzz is working on some web based solutions for handheld users that need live access to their data, using the FileMaker API for PHP and FileMaker Server 9. We can create smaller versions of the main layouts with navigation between them and on a 3G connection the performance is generally more than adequate. This will work on all handheld web browsers and provides live access to your FileMaker database, which is becoming more and more of a necessity for many of our customers when on the road with only their mobile/smartphones.