Steve Jobs always walks on the dark side of life, and his introduction of the iPhone earlier in the year is just another one of those occasions. (Anyone who has read iWoz will know what I am referring to.)
What will the iPhone not do:
Before I go into the various functions that the iPhone lacks, Steve's Job's (Apple Computer's) official mantra is that iPhone is not a computer to most of one's questions.
1. It does not have the basic "cut and paste" that most PDAs have. The iPhone is actually a regression in that respect. (Mantra, This is not a computer)
2. It will not do streaming video. Mantra; It is not a computer
3. The iPod features will not play back through any blue tooth features, nor will it play back through your car stereo using the normal "monster cable" to select an fm station. Mantra; It is not a computer
4. No arrow keys to maneuver your way on text. All that is offered is a backwards moving delete key, or you can try stabbing the iPhone screen in order to reposition the cursor. Mantra; It is not a computer
5. Blue tooth head set use to work both ways with my Treo 650, with the iPhone, it only works with out going calls not incoming. I have the Plantronics 510. Mantra; It is not a computer
6. The iPhone is mostly a slave unit of the laptop computer. Most of the syncing is one way with the real work being done at the computer end, not at the iPhone end. Example, one can not create a group in the iPhone address book (contacts), it has to be done at the computer end. Mantra; It is not a computer
7. There is no sync with the home computer of the iPhone widget notes. No, it does not sync with sticky notes. It sort of hangs out there in "Job's Limbo land." Mantra; It is not a computer
8. The iPhone will not stand up to a normal daily usage without having to recharge its batteries at least once during the day. At the rate of power usage it consumes, the battery will not last long, in-spite of the Apple's mantra of it lasting longer than anything on the market. It is interesting to note that when the iPhone was released, Apple also released a formal statement where they would charge you $75.00 to replace the iPhone battery, and rent you an iPhone for $29.00. Talk about lack of confidence in your own product. How much of a no brainer would it have been to put a door on the back of your iPhone and have the user change their own battery. Mantra; It is not a computer. (Was Job's serious that he has 250 patents on this device.)
Job's needs to get some serious fixes out to the market place soon, otherwise the Asian market will eat him up when they bring out their "reversed engineered" versions of the iPhone at Christmas time.
When I questioned the Apple rep on the mantra of "it is not a computer" I told him to go back and review Steve Job's "dog and pony show performance" that he presented at the mac convention, and also review his statement that there would be a delay in the release of the Leopard operating system for the laptop and desktop, because the software engineers responsible for that, were working on the release of the iPhone system since the iPhone was to be a mini version of the Mac OS X system. I also asked about the fact that some of the iPhone's operating system's features were only one way, residing mostly in the lap top end. His reply was that they now refer to the operating system of the iPhone as the OS X, they removed the word Mac, before Mac OS X, so that consumers would not be confused. Talk about a snow job. ( or maybe instead of calling it a snow job, one would be correct in calling it a "Steve Job."
My take on this, is that the phone was not ready for prime time, and that it should have been released about a year later. However, when you can add close to a half million dollars to your profit margin within a week, greed always wins out. Thus, we have become beta testers for Apple's iPhone, and here I thought that this only occurred with Microsoft in the release of its operating systems.
When you hype your product as much as Job's has, one would expect forward stepping to what one is already accustom to, not several steps backward. Besides the lack of a "cut & paste" feature, I have noticed that I do not have the same coverage with my same Cingular account that I previously had with my Treo 650 using Cingular. The antenna on the iPhone is weak, and it drops calls more frequently than I ever encountered with my Treo 650, using the same carrier.
That is why I made the opening statement that the iPhone is more fiction than reality! If you trying to decide on whether the iPhone is for you, WAIT until Apple gets it right. Who knows maybe Job's will wake up to the bad press that is soon to follow this device, or maybe his Asian competitors' will release their product with a "step forward" type of technology.
What will the iPhone not do:
Before I go into the various functions that the iPhone lacks, Steve's Job's (Apple Computer's) official mantra is that iPhone is not a computer to most of one's questions.
1. It does not have the basic "cut and paste" that most PDAs have. The iPhone is actually a regression in that respect. (Mantra, This is not a computer)
2. It will not do streaming video. Mantra; It is not a computer
3. The iPod features will not play back through any blue tooth features, nor will it play back through your car stereo using the normal "monster cable" to select an fm station. Mantra; It is not a computer
4. No arrow keys to maneuver your way on text. All that is offered is a backwards moving delete key, or you can try stabbing the iPhone screen in order to reposition the cursor. Mantra; It is not a computer
5. Blue tooth head set use to work both ways with my Treo 650, with the iPhone, it only works with out going calls not incoming. I have the Plantronics 510. Mantra; It is not a computer
6. The iPhone is mostly a slave unit of the laptop computer. Most of the syncing is one way with the real work being done at the computer end, not at the iPhone end. Example, one can not create a group in the iPhone address book (contacts), it has to be done at the computer end. Mantra; It is not a computer
7. There is no sync with the home computer of the iPhone widget notes. No, it does not sync with sticky notes. It sort of hangs out there in "Job's Limbo land." Mantra; It is not a computer
8. The iPhone will not stand up to a normal daily usage without having to recharge its batteries at least once during the day. At the rate of power usage it consumes, the battery will not last long, in-spite of the Apple's mantra of it lasting longer than anything on the market. It is interesting to note that when the iPhone was released, Apple also released a formal statement where they would charge you $75.00 to replace the iPhone battery, and rent you an iPhone for $29.00. Talk about lack of confidence in your own product. How much of a no brainer would it have been to put a door on the back of your iPhone and have the user change their own battery. Mantra; It is not a computer. (Was Job's serious that he has 250 patents on this device.)
Job's needs to get some serious fixes out to the market place soon, otherwise the Asian market will eat him up when they bring out their "reversed engineered" versions of the iPhone at Christmas time.
When I questioned the Apple rep on the mantra of "it is not a computer" I told him to go back and review Steve Job's "dog and pony show performance" that he presented at the mac convention, and also review his statement that there would be a delay in the release of the Leopard operating system for the laptop and desktop, because the software engineers responsible for that, were working on the release of the iPhone system since the iPhone was to be a mini version of the Mac OS X system. I also asked about the fact that some of the iPhone's operating system's features were only one way, residing mostly in the lap top end. His reply was that they now refer to the operating system of the iPhone as the OS X, they removed the word Mac, before Mac OS X, so that consumers would not be confused. Talk about a snow job. ( or maybe instead of calling it a snow job, one would be correct in calling it a "Steve Job."
My take on this, is that the phone was not ready for prime time, and that it should have been released about a year later. However, when you can add close to a half million dollars to your profit margin within a week, greed always wins out. Thus, we have become beta testers for Apple's iPhone, and here I thought that this only occurred with Microsoft in the release of its operating systems.
When you hype your product as much as Job's has, one would expect forward stepping to what one is already accustom to, not several steps backward. Besides the lack of a "cut & paste" feature, I have noticed that I do not have the same coverage with my same Cingular account that I previously had with my Treo 650 using Cingular. The antenna on the iPhone is weak, and it drops calls more frequently than I ever encountered with my Treo 650, using the same carrier.
That is why I made the opening statement that the iPhone is more fiction than reality! If you trying to decide on whether the iPhone is for you, WAIT until Apple gets it right. Who knows maybe Job's will wake up to the bad press that is soon to follow this device, or maybe his Asian competitors' will release their product with a "step forward" type of technology.
