As you read my blog, you’ll see I’m a fan of the iPhone, and Apple. I like their products, I like the way they do things. But, there are quite a few things I would like to see changed . The only way to see real change in any business, is to have competition.

I just saw a sneak peek of Viigo for the new Blackberry Storm. I’m not too impressed with the storm itself, but I am happy and motivated to see other devices with touch screen interfaces coming out. Viigo seems to be the RSS reader I want for iPhone, currently I use NetNewsWire, but Viigo seems to be able to do things that the current version for iPhone doesn’t. Here’s hoping someone from NNW is reading my lame blog, and gets some cues, on ways to enhance my experience with the phone. I’m loving the landscape mode, and the use of gestures to navigate from one article to the other.

To the KTLA reporter who was amazed by the people standing in line for the iphone. Yes, we know it’s just a phone. It’s just a phone, for God’s sake. Yet, you seem to miss the sad truth about your career. It’s a line, for a phone, and you are so horrible at reporting anything else, that your bosses sent you to report on a line. A line for God’s sake . Now, I could go on insulting you for your pathetic job, but you have kids to feed, so I understand you had to do what your bosses told you. So, let’s try to see this from another perspective.

Have you ever been excited about a sporting event? A football game, soccer, basketball, etc? Have you gone early for a movie premiere? I hope you said yes to at least one of the above, because otherwise you lead a very boring life. Now try and rationalize the logic of people who want to be home for kick off, tip off, or have to see the movie at midnight, the day of the premiere. Think about all the people who stand outside the line for the Oscars, who want to catch a glimpse of their favorite actor or actress.

Watching the opening kick off, with all your buddies at home is not going to change the outcome of the match. Getting to see a celebrity in the heat, is not going to change your life for the better. Yet, people do it. It’s called excitement, about something they care about. Something they’re passionate about.

Don’t mock someone’s passion, chances are you’re passionate about something they can’t relate to either.

Disclaimer: I stood in line for one hour on opening day, and decided to leave due to a conference call I had to attend, and I’ll be in line at 1:30AM for the premiere of The Dark Knight, so I can watch the 3:15AM show. I expect 450 other people in line with me, to watch “just another movie”.

So, the internet is abuzz, rampant, on fire.. with speculation as to what could or couldn’t happen at the Steve Note next week. So, not to be outdone, and definitely to help throw in some dry wood into the fire.. here’s my take on things.

• MobileMe.com: Apple owns this domain. Why do I know this? Because I tried to register it myself 3 years ago, I started a company and we were doing ‘mobile stuff’ with it. When I did a whois on the domain, it was owned by Apple.com. Now that they’ve moved the hosting over to mark monitor etc, I doubt they gave up the ownership of it. This was also my first indicator that an iphone was coming, and that I was entering the right market
• .Mac Changes: Granted, these changes are way over due, but instead of an overhaul, I’ll jut be happy if things worked as advertised 8 years ago, get the basic syncing to work, then we’ll worry about other fancy features ok Steve?.
• iPhone 2.0: We all know the software update is due anyday now, my bet would be June 29th. Hardware upgrade would be nice as well, along with the standard request for 3G. Some other things I’d like to see:
  • Copy and Paste
  • Ability to ‘beam’ my contact information to another user, or recieve such information from another mobile phone. Seriously, paper business cards.. in 2008? Go green Apple, save the paper, oh and not everyone has a business card, I’d like to be able to give people my personal info, or business info with just a tap. My name is hard enough to pronounce, imagine teaching people how to spell it for my email address.
    PS: I think the first Palm Pilot did this advanced trick…
  • Better support for car stereos etc. My Alpine still complains about the iphone everytime I plug it in, it works, but it’s annoying. I can’t do a firmware update on my car stereo as I can, the iphone.. so .. mobile me car matey! arrrrrr!

Thanks for playing.

On Valentines day, I posted my thoughts on the way Apple pushes it’s old inventory out the door. A few weeks later, The Consumerist gets a tip along the same lines. Now, being a fan of the site, I’m flattered that I caught onto something before they did. I love their work, so thanks for telling more people about this little shenanigan. I obviously don’t have the eyeballs they do, the story made it to the public, I’m glad. Next time, tipsters, please give due credit, I don’t expect the staff at the consumerist to know where every story is coming from.

This is indeed the droid a lot of people have been looking for. This looks like an interesting project, and has all the ingredients to be the first massively public failure of something released by Google. Not from a technological perspective, but from an implementation perspective. We’ll see how it goes, I’ll give my review of the SDK and my thoughts on everything next week. Let’s not forget the Sharp Zaurus, and Qtopia, maybe/hopefully the third time is a charm.. though technically.. it could be the second time.

I think this is a 7.5 feature, but I noticed, that now if you try to add a song to a playlist twice, iTunes will warn you and let you know that you already have the song in the playlist. This is a great feature for me, as I create large playlists for my road trips, and I’ve noticed every now and then that I have the same song twice or sometimes even thrice in there. So, Yay NoDupes!!!

For some reason, the people at TUAW and other fansites, are talking about some pending software update, that may or may not, make the iPhone into Apple’s new product, the iBrick.
Ok, thanks for the update.. but what about this surprises you? And why? Why should Apple have to worry, if their software update will work with all the hacks that are out there? They’re not going to force the update on the phone, but if they’re going to release new apps and functionality, they’ll do it the way they want. Why is this a new concept? And what is wrong with it? Why does this bother me enough to write about it? I dunno.. but enough with the “iphone update may break your home brew hacks”.. no shit, unless they put a gun to your head and made you buy an iphone, quit your whining.

My last iPhone post talked about my purchase of some accessories for the phone. I’ve had the V-Moda Vibe Duo headset for over a week now, and have tried to use it as a headset. The keyword here is “headset”. The headphones are great, listening to music on the headphones is a very pleasant experience. I own the older pair, which were just headphones, and the sound quality on the new headphones is better, in that the first set were extremely heavy on bass, so much so that I don’t use them anymore. The new headphones have much better sound quality and clarity.

The headset sucks.
My issues:

1. No answer button
2. No easy way to walk with the phone and the headphones, since they are sound isolating, keeping them in the ear gives you a wierd feeling.. when they aren’t on.
3. The mic is extremely sensitive to ambient noise

I drive a 1991 Nissan 300ZX, it’s a sports car, and it’s loud.. I can’t use the headset in the car, as all everyone hears is the road. I wish these headsets weren’t so long, and came with better noise cancellation technology on the microphone. I’ll live without the inability to answer the phone through the headsets, but the noise cancellation is key.

The current quality of the headsets has led me to the decision to return the item back to the apple store.

iphone

Following my gripes about the phone, I thought I would also share the things that make me go, “I didn’t waste my money”.

1. The phone is fast. Switching from Safari, to Mail, to Google Maps, to SMS, back to Maps, and then opening another tab in Safari is a breeze. There is no lag. The closest thing this compares to is any PalmOS device, Palm based Treo owners would relate to this the best.
2. The same Treo owners will not relate to this.. it doesn’t lock up. I don’t need to pop the battery. In these two weeks, I’ve never had to even need to do that. My Unlocked Treo 650 straight from Palm, required me to do that on the first day.
3. The screen is beautiful, it works as advertised, the touch sensitivity and accidental touch protection is very good, except in the Camera.. the camera is awkward.
4. The screen works in the Sun, I can see it at all normal angles I would like to see it in the Sun. This could not be said of my previous T-Mobile MDA, or the Treo 650.
5. Web Browsing is superior to anything else in this form factor. I’m not sure why, but Safari works a lot better than Internet Explorer ever did on the mobile platform. The ability to use a real browser is not new, Opera Mini has been available (though buggy for me), and so has IE.. IE sucked at rendering pages, probably due to the awkward way of zooming things, and just being on a slower processor?
6. It can take a beating. I’ve dropped it twice on my hard wood floors, it just bounced a bit. But, it kept working. I even dropped it once during a phone conversation the call never skipped a beat. I also can’t make out any scratches on the surface.
7. Mail on the phone is great, I don’t need PUSH like the crackberry, so it works great for me. The mail client is a bit cumbersome if you have more than one account, in the sense switching between accounts is a very non apple process. But actual reading/writing of mail is a breeze. I’m hoping with a software update, we’ll be able to post inboxes for the accounts we want to read on the “SpringBoard” (That’s apple’s technical term for the Home Screen”), and possibly even the Dock.
8. The Virtual Keyboard is a breeze, keeping in line with the mail comment above, I’ve been able to respond to, and write 3-4 paragraph long emails while a passenger in a car, or while waiting for a movie to start in the theater. I use both thumbs, and I feel like I’m using a first generation tri-corder.

So there is that. I’ll be buying and reviewing many accessories for the iPhone. I currently have the v-moda headset, and the DLO case. The invisible shield has been ordered and will be here soon.

I’ll also have the pleasure of flying to chicago next week, so I’ll get to truly test out the battery life, and iPod features. I hope to find a good holster for it by then, as once I’m in Chicago, I’ll be walking around a lot, with the V-Moda headphones/microphone all day. This should be a true test for me, and the iPhone as a business device.

It’s been two weeks since I first laid hands on the iPhone. I bought it, I caressed it, and I activated it. For two weeks, I have either been the envy of my friends, or I’ve convinced others to get their own phone. Even though the phone is more “oily finger, and smudge” resistant than the original Nano, it’s not 100%. So, start my “issues” with the phone.

1. You absolutely need to buy an invisibie shield, anything else.. would hide the beauty that is the phone.
2. Rubberized cases like the inCase, or DLO are nice and snug, but they make it impossible to make the phone stand on the dock..I like to be able to see my phone at a glance, and I don’t like it laying down.. so something needs to be done about that Plus, see above.. why would you want to hide the beauty?.
3. Apple or Alpine need to issue an update to their head unit compatibility, I want the iPhone to work with my car stereo.
4. Bluetooth headsets suck!. I haven’t been able to find a single one that fits my ear properly, or is loud enough. Maybe I’m going deaf, and have alien ears. But, that doesn’t explain the static after I get 10 feet away from the phone.
5. The default headphones that Apple ships with suck, they have the microphone and the ability to answer, but comfort and sound quality wise they are horrible, so you’re forced to spend more money, but for now you have to wait, only the V-Moda’s come are available now, and they don’t have the ability to answer the phone via the cord. Shure will be releasing the MPA’s soon, but that’s not soon enough for my flight next week.

So, that’s my list of gripes, some may call it bitching, some may call it asking for perfection, most will not read this. Anyway, for $600 the phone is well worth it, the accessories leave some room to be desired, but that’s expected for the first two weeks.