File sharing on the iPhone with iSlsk - why bother?
Is Adam Turner the only person who doesn't see the point in running P2P on the iPhone?
The all-singing, all-dancing iPhone has learned a new trick - it can now download music directly from the Soulseek file sharing network. Why? Because, like Mallory's beloved Everest, "it's there".
iSlsk lets owners of jailbroken iPhones share music on the Soulseek network. It's in early beta but seems to have claimed the title of the first iPhone file sharing app. You can be sure it won't be the last. iSlsk has reportedly been downloaded 41,000 times, so obviously someone is interested.
I don't see the point of P2P on the iPhone. Of course I'm approaching this as the resident of a country that still charges obscene amounts of money for mobile data. Australians are so practiced at measuring out mobile bandwidth with an eyedropper than mobile P2P just sounds insane.
Even if you do live in the land of the free WiFi, I just don't see why you'd need to run P2P on your iPhone. Do you need to hear a song that badly that it can't wait until you get home? You could even access your home P2P server via the iPhone, so the song is downloaded and ready to go by the time you get home. I think running file sharing on your iPhone is more about bragging rights than convenience.
The second big problem with P2P on the iPhone is the copyright police. It's bad enough having the RIAA threatening home users, but now we can expect the copyright narks to start getting court orders so they can pick your pocket and rummage through your iPhone. It's a fear I could live without.
My major concern about mobile file sharing is to do with network congestion. The data speeds on cheap Australian mobile networks such as Vodafone are flaky enough as it is, without some guy in the next street sucking down music and movies over the air. Mobile file sharing will give the mobile network providers an excuse to step into the net neutrality debate.
Once mobile providers start slowing P2P traffic it's a slippery slope and next thing you know we've got artificial walled gardens where ISPs deliberately choke content from other providers (of course some of them do this already, but we don't want to give them an excuse to ramp it up).
I'm not prudish enough to say "don't steal music", I'm just asking you to love your mobile neighbour and hold off on the file sharing until you get home.
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