When I've got a few minutes here and there, I like to browse the CPAN for new, interesting modules. I wanted a way to do this quickly and easily on my iPhone, without needing to get online to do it. This app did not exist, so @ioncache and I set about creating it. iCPAN has been available in the Apple app store for about 4 weeks now and we're currently working on updates for the next version. (Our lightning talk slides have now been posted as well.)

iCPAN works on your iPhone, iPod and even your iPad. Our initial release of the app allows you to:

search CPAN documentation by module name

bookmark your favourite modules

view your recent searches

browse the docs offline



The next release will add the following:

Example code snippets in docs will be formatted via PerlTidy

These codes snippets will also feature syntax highlighting



There are still some issues we are working out. The main one is that the module search is still very slow. We've got a few strategies for dealing with this, but we're still in the process of tweaking it. We're also looking for some feedback and code contributions. If you know a little Objective-C or just want to learn, you can check out the code at http://github.com/oalders/iCPAN. The module processing is written in Perl and the app itself is in Objective-C and they could both use some improvements.

The app download itself is about 60 MB and it expands to around 300 MB on installation. There are well over 50,000 individual modules represented and you can browse them and follow links via our built in web browser. Please let me know what you think. Feature suggestions are also welcome.