An interesting patent of Apple’s relating to a social networking app surfaced recently. Dubbed iGroups, the app aims to solve the pitfalls of traditional social networks, like Facebook, that require users be a member before being able to participate. Instead, iGroups creates a virtual social network based on proximity.

To set the scene, imagine a casual weekend enjoying drinks at a bar. Your device would be able to detect others nearby and allow for easy communication by the tools already built into your device: SMS, email or by phone. If you’re a Mac user, you could loosely term this as Bonjour for your iPhone.

A Network Of Proximity

The idea of a network based on proximity is intriguing considering the technology built into mobile devices that can help facilitate this. Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, for instance, both allow for discovering new devices that are within range. But the problem arises when a user leaves. If they are out of range, they are excluded from the network.

iGroups attempts to solve this issue when it first detects other users. At this point, the devices exchange a token (or handshake, if you will). These tokens are tagged. If there happens to be a trusted source at this venue, for example, like a wireless access point or perhaps a website setup for this purpose, devices can exchange tokens with it. Before this gets too technical, let’s agree to call the trusted source “Wilma.”

This accomplishes two important things. The first is that Wilma can match or correlate tokens to determine groups and their members. When my device approaches and exchanges tokens, Wilma now knows what group I’m part of and similarly, I’ll know other group members that have checked in with Wilma. This process allows the network to grow by allowing its users to infer other users through this daisy chain process. Further, tokens can be exchanged through a variety of mechanisms: Wi-Fi if available, Bluetooth if desired or even 3G. By supporting all of these, it becomes much easier to visualize a realistic image of the network and prevents the network from being stifled because users are not exchanging tokens by just one method that not all devices may support.

The second important goal that this serves is solving the issue of users leaving range and thus losing the whole social networking aspect. If a user interacts with Wilma either at the event or afterwards (through something similar to MobileMe, perhaps), the user can see the entire group. Even if they are just uploading exchanged between Fred and their self, the inferring process described earlier will allow the rest of the network to be recreated. As Fred moves on and continues to exchange tokens, even after our user has left, they are still connected to the same event and will appear as part of the group. Mac users? Think of this as being similar to Smart Folders. The group “knows” who its members are by this process of exchanging tokens, even if not all of the users are present at the same time.

It’s worthwhile to mention that any sort of implementation of such a technology would of course be completely optional and protect the privacy of users if they did not wish to participate. Further, the patent sheds light on the fact that the tokens themselves do not contain information that would identify any particular user or device. Merely the tokens act as a way to tag an association with a specific group.

Still, the idea of creating these virtual social networks on the iPhone is appealing. In some regards, there are applications on the market that attempt to deliver similar functionality, like Loopt. However, as mentioned earlier, these solutions still require users to have an account with them which can be problematic if you meet someone and want to exchange information but they are not a member of Facebook or LinkedIn. Instead of waiting for them to sign up and register a profile, iGroups solves the whole problem faster.

This definitely isn’t Apple’s first foray into patents on social interactions, but none of them have seen the light of day. With rumors of iPhone 4.0 around the corner, however, perhaps there is a substantial social component waiting to be unveiled. What do you think about the potential of iGroups?

For instance, you may have an iMac at home with all your media, photos and family content, and also a MacBook which you use for business/travel. ShareTool allows you to connect to your home network from your MacBook when travelling, accessing the files on the iMac, sharing the screen and even printing to your home device.

Setup and Installation

The process of setting up ShareTool is remarkably simple. When launching, you are presented with the following window:

This allows you to select whether you’re wanting to share the content of this Mac, or connect to the shared content on a different network. This simple user interface design flows throughout the rest of the application, meaning that a fairly complicated network operation appears remarkably simple to the user.

ShareTool is able to automatically configure your network router, and had no problem altering the required settings on my Time Capsule. However, when tested on a different router it struggled to apply the port rules automatically, requiring them to be entered manually. I expect that most modern routers will work easily — if you own a fairly old device, you’ll need to be prepared to delve into settings a little deeper.

Once you’ve set up sharing, you’re presented with the following screen:

It is easy to copy the connection information to your clipboard or email it to yourself. You also have the option of selecting exactly which Bonjour services you are wanting to share:

Using ShareTool

Once you have set up sharing and decided exactly what you want to share, connecting to the network remotely is very straight forward. You type in the details provided when setting up sharing and, fingers crossed, everything goes to plan. I didn’t have any issues, but I can imagine that problems could occur centering around dynamic IP addresses, firewalls etc. ShareTool does support a few services (DynDNS.com, No-IP.com, and DNS-O-Matic.com) which would help to circumvent the problem of a regularly changing IP address.

Services appear as they would if you were plugged into the network and the software seems very reliable — everything worked well for me. There are a few preferences you can change relating to connecting/sharing.

ShareTool states that the software “works with all Internet connections (56k modem and all high speed connections)”. While this is technically true, most of the services in question would be unusable without a fast broadband connection at both ends. Those which involve greater data transfer (streaming audio for instance) would suffer the most.

If you use a VPN, you’ll know that Bonjour services aren’t automatically available when connecting remotely. ShareTool solves this by allowing you to enter your home machine’s internal IP address once you’re connected to the VPN. This performs the same function as normal, and will enable all the various services you have shared.

Security

If you’re transmitting data to and from your home network over the internet, it is important to consider the security aspect. Fortunately, ShareTool is extremely secure and encrypts all data with SSH. This uses AES (Advanced Encryption Standard), a universally accepted security standard. It also has a method in place for ensuring that it is your machine that is connecting to your network.

Conclusion

Whether I would recommend ShareTool depends heavily on what you’ll need it for, and whether you already have a MobileMe account. The Back to my Mac feature of MobileMe allows for File Sharing and Screen Sharing with relative ease, but ShareTool enables a host of additional services. Some, such as remote printing, can be achieved fairly easily through a combination of File and Screen Sharing, but others such as iTunes Sharing are only possible through ShareTool.

The price difference is important. MobileMe costs $99 for a year, whereas ShareTool is $30 on a one off basis. If you already own MobileMe and only require Screen/File Sharing, then ShareTool isn’t necessary. If you are not a MobileMe user, it’s a great way to stay connected to your home or office network from anywhere.

Pros

• It’s really easy to set up with most modern routers
• A wide range of services are supported – you can share almost anything
• Encryption is excellent
• It is fairly inexpensive compared to MobileMe

Cons

• It doesn’t differ dramatically from Back to my Mac
• It requires some network knowledge for those with older routers
• Speed is a limiting factor – it works much better with very fast broadband connections

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