A quick note about a new feature in the email client on the iPhone in the latest iOS4 release. When you receive an email with a date or time mentioned in it, Apple’s email client automatically detects the date, and presents it as an underlined hyperlink. Clicking the date then creates an event in your Calendar on the date/time that was recognised in the text. Apparently it defaults to using the email’s subject line as the event title. (As an aside, it’s also worth noting that Gmail has had similar functionality since around 2006.)

I’m guessing Apple has rolled-their-own date recognition code, probably using simple rules or regular expressions. Does anyone know more about the technology behind this feature?

(Hat tip to Rob Tot for alerting me to this functionality)

According to my recently received Nokia Developer Newsletter, Nokia has agreed to release the source code for its Python for Series 60 (S60) software to the open source community through SourceForge. This follows last year’s launch of Python for S60, which lets developers develop software for S60 mobile devices in Python.

This seems like an interesting turn of events to me. I know Nokia is also working on a Perl for Symbian project as well, so it would appear that this is merely the latest in a series of events aimed at making the S60 a more attractive and diverse platform for developers. One day I’ll actually make time to properly play with some of this cool mobile technology!!

A quick search of SourceForge suggests that the PyS60 project seems to be this announced project. Unfortunately, it currently has no sourcecode, or indeed any files, available for download. The Nokia Open Source site similarly has a Python for S60 page setup, but no source code available yet. I’ll be keeping an eye out for the software to match Nokia’s release though – if anyone else has already located it, please leave a comment!