iphone 3g 2.0
So after a month of waiting to get the newly released Iphone, I now have my second iphone, the iphone 3g.
The nominal changes in the hardware ( 3g and proper gps) were the deal breakers for me with the original iphone.
There was nothing like showing off that cool web browser to someone and then waiting 20 minutes for the page to load.
Copy and paste was heartbreaking, and still is, though apparently Joswaiak says "though they are not against the feature it wasn't on the list of priorities", leading me to believe its in the ether somewhere.
The search feature now added to contacts in 2.0 has also made the iphone more of a reality for me.
The 3g makes browsing something you can do without getting an ulcer, and short of flash intensive sites you can view quite a bit on content quickly.
Flash support maybe asking too much, but it does beg the question, what's the deal with Adobe and Apple? Flash would definitely complete the picture.
Now the bad news.
I implore someone to give Steve Jobs a Blackberry.
Blackberry vs Iphone takes me back the days when PC's had all the goodies, and macs were
for blue state art fags who liked the pretty, easy to use OS.
Outside of copy and paste there are some quintessential features that a Blackberry has, that you will have to sacrifice on an Iphone.
A shared inbox.
I have about four email address's in current use.
On a Blackberry those address's all seamlessly unite into one inbox.
With an Iphone its 4 click process between email accounts.
Search feature for mail.
You can't search your email on your iphone.
Not only that but now you cant even log on to the new "Mobile Me" from your iphone to use the web based search feature you could once use on dot mac. ( Mobile me is still a mess by they way)
It surprises me with the great and very successful lengths Apple has gone to to insure great search technology on its computers.
I cant even find the control panel on a PC, Apple's search engine will find a telephone number off a pdf.
Why not on the Iphone?
Attachments/contacts:
You can only save photos to your iphone.
You can not save documents, nor attach them to an email.
You also can't send contacts.
MMS:
When someone sends you one of these things, usually a voice note or a picture sent through SMS, the iphone will direct you to a service providers password protected server where the photo is loaded for you to view. The message usually provides a convoluted password that with no copy and paste is useless.
You will be asking your friends to email you the pic, not to text it. Voice notes do however seem to work.
Address book dialing:
Hit the green phone button on your Blackberry and you start punching in the first few letters in a name and the contact will appear ready to be dialed with one click.
Apples search feature in contacts has helped, but finding a number still takes a few extra clicks, which during those uncommon moments when the 101 Fwy is moving, can be dangerous.
If your considering migrating from a Blackberry you may also miss BBM.
BBM is really the mobile chat of choice for today's hipster on the go.
If someone on the east side is gonna tell someone they are gonna be late to the gallery opening but can pick them up a Kambucha,
it's going down on BBM.
BBM also allows you to send contact and photos and documents directly to you contacts.
The Iphone so far has no similar proprietary application with those options. You'll bum your Blackberry peeps out by going SMS on them, though it is pretty on the Iphone
Now on to the apps.
Any dork was thrilled by the release of the Iphone SDK.
Basically it opened the iphone up to developers to come up with applications for the iphone, without having to crack your iphone, possibly rendering it unable to update or even ruined.
There apparently was a catch.
Apple is in truth the ultimate Big Brother.
Yes its dressed in a more utopian Huxley like package, but, not to sound paranoid, they are the people that put a camera on everyones computer.
They are in full control of all the apps as they have to be downloaded from Itunes exclusively.
Now they are taking GPS to a whole new level.
"Cence Me " for instance offers to share with everybody not only where you are, but what you are doing with Iphones sensors and GPS:
"CenceMe helps you to remain connected to your Facebook™ friends on the move. Using advanced machine learning techniques, CenceMe software infers human presence information based on iPhone™ 2.0 sensors, for example, activity, location. Soon, CenceMe will even be able to determine if a person is busy in a conversation, or dancing at a party, and will automatically learn your buddies' favorite hang outs! This presence can be gathered and shared with your social circle via Facebook™ without any extra effort."
There are a number of similar applications offering to tell everyone were you are.
Even the camera now asks if you want to let it to find out where you are before you take a picture.
It's all for fun, but if your the type of person that maybe spent a day or two at least investigating the possibility that 911 was an inside job, and the Bohemian Grove gives you the willies, then these apps will scare the shit out of you.
All this on the heals of telecom immunity adds more to the fun.
Outside of that, most of the over 500 applications are fairly useless.
Don't get me wrong, I had to resort to "Acid Mothers Temple" to stump "Shazam" an application that can guess what your listening to and then lead you to any content available for it on Itunes and You Tube, thats a fun app.
Yet from an app that mimics a light saber to a half dozen that turn your iphone into a flashlight, there is not one single application that actually enhances the iphone.
Basically there are about 50 different ways to find out what restaurants are close by, and what movies are playing near you. I wonder who can't live without the four abacus programs I've counted.
If you were excited about AIM finally on the iphone, it logs you out when its not opened, and you can't silence the famous incoming IM underwater chime sound. It also always crashes.
I promise you Apple will not green light an app that will showcase the iphone flaws. If it was truly open source, there would be third party search engines for your phone and some sort of copy and paste app. I'd pay 50 bucks for each.
So why am I keeping my Iphone?
In truth its for the same reasons I voted for Barack Obama.
It looks good. It sounds good.
But just like Obama I know its not gonna do what I want it to do and its too early in its development to handle the very basic things I need it to do. I guess, at the end of the day I'm just a blue state art fag.
