The iPhone Ain't All That

Posted by Robert on the 12th of January, 2007 at 5:41 PM GMT0. Permalink.
Tags: Apple, Cingular, Geek, iPhone, Phones

The following is an advertisement.

When I posted this, I was listening to: Recoil - Incubus

iPhone. Relish it as you say it. Now realize your breath stinks more now than it did before you uttered the word.

As I do every year, I spent the day of the MacWorld San Francisco keynote reading about Apple's latest offerings. This year was particularly exciting because a product was announced that had been rumored for a half decade: an Apple cell phone dubbed the iPhone. The buzz on the Internet was enormous. Apple had done it. They blew away every cell phone ever made ever. Ever.

The problem with a buzz is that it may lead to a hangover if it isn't properly nursed. In the days after the iPhone's announcement, things have soured. I was, at first, skeptical of the initial negative rumblings. I'm now skeptical about the iPhone.

The first negative feedback was, oddly enough, from a fellow web designer, Roger Johansson at 456 Berea Street. In his article, he chides the software keyboard. While I agree with Steve Job's point in the keynote about the lack of a way to change the hardware input devices after the product ships resulting in awkward interfaces for some programs, Roger's concern over the lack of tactile feedback is quite valid and has been echoed numerous times. I still contend that, at least with my RAZR, I have to look when I dial. That may be because the RAZRs keyboard isn't quite as tactile as, say, my old Nokia 3660, or it may be because I just suck at dialing phones. Whatever the case, I can live without tactile feedback.

Engadget, in their live blogging of the keynote, were the first to express displeasure with the lack of 3G support. The iPhone does EDGE, like most of Cingular's selection of phones. While 3G would be nice, I understand why Apple opted for EDGE. In the US, 3G support isn't ubiquitous like EDGE. Besides, the iPhone has wireless 802.11 b/g networking built in, and will take preference to 802.11 networks. I consider EDGE to be a backup to 802.11, and assume that I would be browsing over 802.11 more often than EDGE. So, I can live with EDGE as a backup.

Engadget started breaking the news that the iPhone isn't really a smartphone. Unfortunately, I had no substantive reason to believe that the iPhone would not install third party applications (the feature that makes a smart phone a smart phone), and hoped it was just conjecture. After all, Jobs said smartphone and said it was years ahead of offerings from Palm, RIM, and the Windows Mobile crowd. They all accept third party applications. That means the iPhone should, too.

Apparently that is not exactly the case. In a New York Times article, Jobs is quoted as saying, That doesn't mean there's not going to be software to buy that you can load on them coming from us. It doesn't mean we have to write it all, but it means it has to be more of a controlled environment. So, it will install third party applications, but not any third application thrown its way. This is unfortunate because there is the potential to be tons of free applications to be used on the iPhone, as there are with Windows Mobile, Palm OS, and Symbian. So, unless Apple is very careful with how this works, they could greatly stifle development for the iPhone which would make it far less valuable.

So, why no random third party applications? It seems to be purely Steve Job's desire to have strict control over the platform. He tries to play it off as a concern Cingular may have expressed, Cingular doesn't want to see their West Coast network go down because some application messed up. He also suggests that third party applications might cause problems with the phone itself, The last thing you want is to have loaded three apps on your phone and then you go to make a call and it doesn't work anymore. I think the key was in a previous quote, That doesn't mean there's not going to be software to buy that you can load on them coming from us. The revenue stream is as important as keeping the phone locked up tight to prevent any potential problems.

I understand where Job's is coming from, but I don't agree with it. There are tons of smartphones with tons of unauthorized third party applications. No network has gone down. For the most part, no one has been unable to use their phone because of the applications they install on it. I would have thought Apple would be smart enough to have a third party application sandbox programmed into the phone to prevent them from causing problems. I hope they considered it.

After I read David Pogue's follow up article to his experience with the iPhone, I was astounded by the shortcomings. The article is basically a frequently asked questions. It astounded me that the questions asked, the things consumers were interesting, were largely answered with, No. Steve Jobs says, We define everything that is on the phone. You don't want your phone to be like a PC. It sounds like Steve want's to define what is in people's minds. I'm sorry, Steve, I do want my smartphone to be like a computer. I want to be able to put what I want on it to help me be more productive when I'm not at my computer. Apple can't account for everything I need.

All this boils down to one problem: calling the iPhone a smartphone. In the end, all my gripes go away if the iPhone is just a really smart regular cell phone. Touting it as a smartphone requires that it do certain things. If Apple wants to revolutionize the cell phone, that's fine. But they can't change the definition of smartphone.

I still have hope, however, that in the next six months, Apple will give a little more insight into their new product and that it, hopefully, will become more appealing. If not, I still have the Nokia N95.

This post can also be discussed on LiveJournal and MySpace.

Add this page to del.icio.us or email it.

Comments on this page are closed due to age. If you need to say something, e-mail me.