jdodson.org

** ADDITION: Please read this and understand this is an post about my opinion based on my experience.  This isn’t the end of the world, I assure you its simply my opinion. END ADDITION **

The iPhone is an amazing product.  At least, I think so.  A few other people seem to agree with me.  A year or so ago, a friend gave me a first generation iPhone he bought that was broken.  It wouldn’t turn off or on.  You could charge it fine, have it go into standby and use it in every way save it won’t turn off or on.  Since thats not a big deal, I started using it minus the “phone.”  I just use the “i” part and the “i” part is great.  Ive heard bad things about the phone part.  Can’t comment on that really, I just have an “i”.

I think the i is amazing.  About two years ago I purchased Nokia N800.  This Linux powered internet tablet plays music, surfs the web over wifi, supports email, flash in the browser, has a web cam, does Skype and more.  It is a cool device but is has problems.  Not only is it slow, its just not that easy to use.  Crashes, laggy apps and over time it seemed like a chore to use.  After my friend gave me his broken iPhone I realized you could take a handheld device and make it shine for certain uses the Nokia was bad at.

One other huge gripe of the N800 was how lame the web looked in its mini-firefox OR Opera browser.  Fonts were small.  Scrolling simply didn’t work on some pages(Amazon).  The web sucked on the N800.  The biggest thing the i got right was that it made the Safari mobile browser shine.  Surfing the web on the i is a joy to use and I don’t surf the web at home on a regular computer these days at all.  I use the i.

Another thing the i does well is email.  I guess I should qualify, the i is good at reading email.  Any kind of text entry on the i means you have to touch the screen on a fake keyboard.  Essentially imagine typing on a glass window.  It sucks.  I like that my fingers hit a keyboard and they don’t immediately stop.  Plus its hard to remain 100% accurate with no keys.  I recently picked up a Verizon phone and it has a flip out touch pad keyboard.  I am way more accurate on a flip out touch pad than the iBoard. Because of this, I enter little data in the i, I use it as a client primarily.

The i has a 2 mega pixel camera.  Its not amazing, but cool to have when you don’t have a better one.  It is better than nothing but the quality is sub crap.  You need the lighting to be perfect, you can’t move your hand or the picture will smear.  Don’t think about taking party pictures, it will look like the inside of a dark shoe box.  But its a great thing to have and I have taken many pictures on it and some turned out great.  Most don’t.

I would say that sums up what I think is awesome about the iPhone.  Sure it has 20 billion apps but most of them suck I don’t find compelling enough to use or enjoy. I recently bought a game called Zenonia for $3 and its incredible, but I find that to the exception to the blase app rule.  I use a twitter app all the time but I could just the use mobile web part and it wouldn’t be terrible.  All told I don’t find the fact that they have a billion apps to be a big deal at all.  A few others I use are just the web site re packaged into a app on the i that is native.  Its kind of nicer in some cases but not a big deal, most sites have a mobile view anyway.

Lets get into the horrible parts about the i.  These are so bad, I prob won’t buy one because of them.  Understand to me a open platform is pretty important.  I value a open platform over a “more sexy” platform any day.  So far the parts of the platform I use the most have no need to be closed.  However, the i and the Phone is one of the most closed down platforms I have used in my recent memory.

1) You can only copy music on it from iTunes and only one instance of iTunes at that.  Seriously WTF is it 1984?  I am as legit a user as it gets yet Apple won’t let me sync this crap from one iTunes instance to another.  That is simply lame.  I sync between multiple computers, this is essential to my workflow.  – infinity for treating me like a criminal.

1.1) I don’t like iTunes, why force me to use it?  I just want the i not the Tunes!  This is not a joke, I really don’t care for it.

2) All apps on the App Store are DRM’d no matter what.  This is simply silly.  First off, 99% of my apps are free so I don’t get why they are wrapped in DRM.  Second off DRM shouldn’t be mandatory, it should only be on apps where the app provider requests it.  Seems odd to wrap everything in DRM if some developers might not want it in the first place.  Why would they not want DRM on the app?  Oh I don’t know, how about because every time I upgrade my i they don’t work?  I have to go into my i and authenticate to the App Store in preferences and then manually open every app so it can see I am me.  This is stupid and silly.  I am not a criminal, please don’t treat me like one.  I am now starting to wonder if I ever bought another iPhone or iPod touch, if the apps I bought would transfer?  Note to Apple: NEVER MAKE YOUR CUSTOMER QUESTION THIS KIND OF THING!  This reason alone is reason enough for me to discontinue paying for App Store apps.  I don’t care about DRM until it gets in my way or scares me and the reality of DRM is just that.

3) No bluetooth support in ways I care about.  I got a new Verizon phone for $80.  This phone is in every way a more open device than my iPhone.  One of the ways is that it enables me to transfer any file on it to any bluetooth device.  I guess Verizon(or LG) should be sued for enabling piracy.  I actually think that is quite unlikely to happen, but they might have happy customers because they can transfer pictures to each other on the fly with each other.  I guess you can always TXT or email a picture on the i but it scales it down very small like and some people(AKA myself) I care about fidelity of sources(picture, audio).

4) Can’t plug SDHC cards into it.  I see failure in two ways:  1) (The Paranoid View) Apple builds planned obsolescence in its devices by denying their expandability.  2) Somehow a SDHC reader will not work within the confines of a iPhone/iPod touch.  3) Something else that isn’t coming to me right now.  The i I have has 8 gigs of flash on it.  Id like to upgrade this.  Oh, wait, too bad, can’t.  Buy a new phone.  Not only is this silly because you can avoid it by allowing SDHC cards, it seems a little un-green of Apple too.  Then again, there may be some technical reason they don’t do this.  Like technically when everyone upgrades iPhones they technically make more money.

5) AT&T only.  HAHAHAHA no.

I recently got a Verizon phone for $80 that in many ways puts the i to shame.  I still will keep around the i to surf the web and cehck email but that will be it for now.  I have read in some places that a Android phone is coming to Verizon this year and saw some specs and screen shots and it looks very cool.  Prob get one of those.  I won’t be tied to Apple then.  I hope Apple decides to open up its device more than it is.  It would be good for its users and may add another to its paying fold.  Namely myself.