July 03, 2007
iPhone after the afterglow
Now, don't get me wrong. I'm extremely happy that I fell for all of the iHype about the Apple iPhone. And it is, without a doubt, more impressive than the first color Mac LCIII I owned, or my first iPod, or my MacBook Pro.I mean, really, would you expect any less of me? Falling for all the hype and running out to buy one on the first day? I thought not. After all, I'm the guy who wants Apple everywhere, remember?
After all, I'm not the only one. Word around the campfire is that there were more iPhones sold in three days, than HD radios sold in last three years. Which reminds me... Oh wait. That's not this post. That's a story for another time.
Where were we? Oh yes.
After a few days of using it, there are a couple of foibles I've noticed. A few things that seem not-quite-there yet with this little technological marvel.
So, for those of you who took the plunge or for those of you who may, I thought I would list a couple of should-be, could-be requests. (Caveat: It's quite possible that these are things that I have been too stupid or uncool to find as of yet):
- Using the rest of the iPhone while on a call?
Let's say you're chatting with someone and they say, "Are you available for lunch, next Thursday?" You're talking on an iPhone, so you give the requester a rather smug, "Let me check my schedule on my iPhone, on which I am speaking to you currently, forthwith." You go to check your schedule. What the...? No dice. You can navigate to contacts, start some conference calls, hang up. But no other functions while the call is active. Seems like I should be able to check my schedule while on a call, doesn't it? Watch a movie while I'm on a really boring call? Something?
[Update July 17, 2007: Um, duh. Push the "home" button. Problem solved. Check that one off the list.] - IM client?
I know SMS is all the rage with the hip kids. But me? I kick it old school with IM. Why isn't iChat on this thing? Or at least something else? I could IM all day on my old Samsung, but not on my iPhone? Sniff sniff. And the iPhone has a better keyboard, so my IM messages would actually be intelligible. Unlike my previous phone, where I would send things like "wamt tm mddt md fmp a bddr?" - iTunes?
I would really, really, really like some iTunes on this bad boy. I mean, sure, it's an iPod. But why can't I run iTunes on this mother? If I had iTunes, I could listen to the music I'm sharing over my home wireless network. Just like a Walkman before they had tape players. Talk about old school. I mean, why download all the music when I just want to listen within wireless range? Better yet? When I'm wandering around my neighborhood, why not let other people browse the music sitting on my iPhone. I mean, in addition to me getting to obsess about "what kind of music I need to carry to seem uberhip," they would get to listen to my tunes, or vice versa. How cool would that be? You can't tell me this isn't on the road map. If it's not, it should be. Because if it's got iTunes, I could buy that music, right then and there, too. Hmmm. Interesting.
[Update July 20, 2007: Hallelujah!]
Short list. I know. That's it. Those are the only complaints that come to mind, so far. I'm sure I'll come up with more, but the relationship is still young.
I mean, sure, a few iCal issues and whatnot, but that's not huge. And some other weirdness, here and there. But that's to be expected with new technology.
I'm still smitten.
iPhone after the afterglow
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