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Seven iPhone Disappoinments That Don't Disappoint
ismashphone.com — Forbes recently wrote an article called "Seven iPhone Disappoinments". This article disproves Forbes and proves that those 7 features are in no way disappointments.
mikek814- 142 diggs
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- rwallen, on 06/25/2008, -2/+10I have to disagree with not caring about MMS. I really dig my iphone and I don't want to replace it, but a lot of my friends can't get email on their phones and we can't send pics back and forth. Plus the email has to be checked it doesn't come through right away.
I agree with pretty much everything else though.- cubbiesx, on 06/26/2008, -1/+1MMS is more fun than email (period).
- dalesmatrix, on 06/26/2008, -0/+1I guess with push mobileme email, you will actually get instant notification of an incoming email on the iPhone.
- edk89g, on 06/25/2008, -9/+4I couldn't agree more. They're complaining about nothing.
- TypeEE, on 06/25/2008, -1/+2copy and paste?
- JillEva, on 06/25/2008, -2/+16I still cannot get it why iPhone has no cut/paste
- imcquill, on 06/25/2008, -2/+2I'm sure they have 1000 prototypes developed in Apple R&D. It is not hard to come up with ideas. But it is difficult to come up with the optimal way of doing it. And once they add it in, it is kind of difficult to change the way people do things, so it is better to get it right the first time.
- dood, on 06/26/2008, -1/+2It's even better to get basic functionality all nailed down before releasing rev 1.
- godofpumpkins, on 06/26/2008, -0/+2I'm a relative "power user" of my iPhone. I have three email accounts set up on it, use it regularly for web browsing, and am a member of the dev team. And to be honest, I could probably count the number of times I thought "oh I wish I had copy and paste" on one hand, since I bought it the day it came out almost a year ago. The iPhone is not a computer and there really aren't that many situations in which you actually need to copy and paste stuff, if you don't have big text editors and other "productivity" apps running on it.
I'll be interesting to see how they approach this now the SDK and the App Store are going public, though.
- godofpumpkins, on 06/26/2008, -0/+2I'm a relative "power user" of my iPhone. I have three email accounts set up on it, use it regularly for web browsing, and am a member of the dev team. And to be honest, I could probably count the number of times I thought "oh I wish I had copy and paste" on one hand, since I bought it the day it came out almost a year ago. The iPhone is not a computer and there really aren't that many situations in which you actually need to copy and paste stuff, if you don't have big text editors and other "productivity" apps running on it.
- dood, on 06/26/2008, -1/+2It's even better to get basic functionality all nailed down before releasing rev 1.
- tacotruck08, on 06/26/2008, -0/+3Or why it doesn't send a ***** picture message for God's sake. I mean come on its the iPhone, the most advanced phone on the market right now and it cant ***** copy/paste and send a picture message?? Uhmm..hello Mr. Jobs, WTF is going on here.
- imcquill, on 06/25/2008, -2/+2I'm sure they have 1000 prototypes developed in Apple R&D. It is not hard to come up with ideas. But it is difficult to come up with the optimal way of doing it. And once they add it in, it is kind of difficult to change the way people do things, so it is better to get it right the first time.
- Bleach90, on 06/25/2008, -5/+2Good article, some of the disappointments were completely irrelevant.
- bpapa, on 06/25/2008, -13/+9I've had the iPhone since day 1, and I use the crap out of it, and seriously, only have once have I said to myself "wow I really wish I could copy and paste this." I don't need it. Most of the stuff that people want to copy and paste has a contextual link (ie a phone number) to another application. At this point I hope there never is Copy and Paste just to spite and give fuel to the haters.
Totally agree on the MMS/SMS issue. Who really wants to PAY to send bytes of data? Oh boo hoo, your friends can't get email on their phone. Sucks for them, tell them to get with the times. Why should your device have to make concessions to support a technology which honestly is rather stupid?
As for no Flash Player - it's annoying with something like going to the NYT website or ESPN and not being able to watch a video. But why is this Apple's problem? The content providers should be standardizing on something other than just saying "yeah, we use Flash." Flash WAS a great standard for the last five years and led to things like huge success for YouTube. But honestly, is anybody really looking forward to installing Adobe bloatware on their iPhones?
I thought Voice Dialing was a joke when people were complaining about not having it last year, but it's back again. If you had somebody in your voice dialing memory they probably would be in your "favorite" section anyway, which is two taps away.- mikek814, on 06/25/2008, -4/+2One of the best comments ever.
- mrblaack, on 06/25/2008, -1/+4I can excuse the cost, no video recording and mms, maybe even lack of flash, but no access to battery and no voice dialing are 2 things I would miss if I switched to the iphone.
- imcquill, on 06/25/2008, -1/+1Get a juicepack or some kind of generator battery charger. Those will charge other things besides your phone as well. And if the battery really goes down hill after a couple of years, they will change them for the price of a battery anyways.
- imcquill, on 06/25/2008, -1/+1There seems to be 2 situations where one might want a second battery
1) to swap when travelling around - instead get a juiceback, or even better, a generator to change batteries, which will charge laptops and cameras too.
2) when the battery is getting old, change it out with a new one.. Apple can do this for you..
- estvir, on 06/25/2008, -10/+51. Basically, their defence for Apple is ".. but realize what you are getting for the price!" - right, how convincing. Amazingly enough they've manage to suck at journalism more than Forbes.
2. They have no real defence here.
3. Those are poor excuses. Face it, not having replaceable batteries is downright idiotic and just Apple forcing it's way of life [and more costs] on you.
4. Well it's not much of a smart phone than is it? Considering I have an old phone from my last years of high school which records video, it's embarassing such a high tech piece, from Apple no less, doesn't have it.
5. And here he admits his blatant Apple fanboyism and willingness to accept anything Steve Jobs does and will use the things he BOUGHT the way Apple says so.
6. Wow.
7. Yes, no one cares that's why you're writing a rebutall to a little known site, FORBES.com.
Look at that, I showed how moronic he is without even needing to create a HIDEOUS site with a horrible domain. - crampy20, on 06/25/2008, -5/+6Frankly an awful rebuttal.
1 - you cannot claim that it is more expensive yet more of a bargain without justification. Plus saying that a particular samsung is more expensive just points out that you haven't made a argument.
2 - Saying 'perhaps' in response to there being no flash is not a rebuttal, perhaps the iPhone will have 6 Ghz speeds and 16 cores, its always possible.
3 - Saying that the phone is all in one, and then saying it doesnt have several parts to take apart does not justify there being no replaceable battery. Good battery life per charge, car charging and juice packs miss the point - what about repairs? or the middle of nowhere? or the unsightly juice packs? plus every phone has those anyway.
4 - yes apple did made a smart device, but cant a smart device also record video? im not saying i want it, but comparing a phone with a camcorder is *****.
5 - well done for conceiving the cut and paste point
6 - i have to agree with this MMS point, who needs expensive MMS if you have email? ok it doesnt instantly get to their phones, but what is ever so urgent about an attached film or picture?
7 - verbal dialing is pointless, i agree - clak, on 06/25/2008, -3/+4What really pains me about people who complain about the iPhone is that they expect the iPhone to be something Steve Jobs never promised. Remember when he said these words at the 2007 MacWorld Keynote?
"Today, we're introducing THREE revolutionary products... the first is a wide screen iPod with touch controls. The second is a revolutionary mobile phone. And the third is a breakthrough internet communication device."
In other words, an iPod with multi-touch, a phone with visual voice-mail, visual call swap, visual call merge and scrolling contact lists for dialing, and Safari Mobile, a full internet browser optimized by pinches and double taps on a wide screen. On these 3 things, Steve Jobs delivered. But imagine, if you will, if Apple had focused instead on bringing a video camera to the iPhone instead of a revolutionary iPod, or MMS instead of multi-touch or Copy & Paste instead of Safari. What then? Oh, right, the iPhone would have been EXACTLY like every other phone on the market and no doubt the Apple Haters would have complained about it being EXACTLY like every other phone. You guys can't have it both ways. Either it's a revolutionary phone that's unlike any phone before it or it's... well... NOT. You can't be revolutionary with a product by making it EXACTLY like the products that came before it.
Now don't get me wrong, I think the iPhone should have Copy & Paste, but is this really as important as having a full internet browser? Do you know of a phone which had a better internet browser before the iPhone? Do you know of another phone that had a better music player or user interface? And what's this dumb obsession with MMS? MMS is INFERIOR to e-mail, which is why Apple decided not to support it, in the same way they decided not to support a WAP browser, which is also INFERIOR to a FULL internet browser like Safari Mobile. If Apple wants to stay ahead of the pack, and stay innovative, they can't be EXACTLY like everyone else.- DeviantDragon, on 06/26/2008, -0/+1I don't really see why you're acting like copy and paste and a good internet browser were two mutually exclusive things that development simply could not juggle. You're really giving Apple a lot of benefit of the doubt that copy and paste is somehow something that would only be possible with sacrifice of good user interface and a coherent browser. And to say that haters would complain about it having something like copy and paste making it a other phone-clone is ludicrous. Revolutionary products don't necessarily leave useful features behind. It's like having a new "revolutionary" car that is unlike any other because it lacks seats.
- TypeEE, on 06/25/2008, -1/+4How about podcast without going back to the dock? I hate that you can't update podcast subscriptions through wifi.
- rightmindx, on 06/25/2008, -0/+1Agreed, you can buy music through the iPhone iTunes Music Store but you cannot download podcasts that are distributed by their creators for free, which sucks when you are traveling and want to get the latest podcasts while on the road, especially if you don't have a laptop. NPR podcasts, for example, are perfect for long drives.
It would also be nice to be able to delete podcasts you've already listened to directly from the iPhone.- dood, on 06/26/2008, -0/+1What happens if you try to download the podcast while on the road? I assume they're just MP3s or something. Does the iPhone refuse to download them?
- rightmindx, on 06/25/2008, -0/+1Agreed, you can buy music through the iPhone iTunes Music Store but you cannot download podcasts that are distributed by their creators for free, which sucks when you are traveling and want to get the latest podcasts while on the road, especially if you don't have a laptop. NPR podcasts, for example, are perfect for long drives.
- undetected, on 06/26/2008, -1/+3People already see you're using an iPhone. You don't really want to be end up looking like a dork by using voice dialing.
- ThatDustyGuy, on 06/26/2008, -3/+0So should I get the iPhone at AT&T or the Apple store?
- RIMberry, on 06/26/2008, -1/+2Neither, get a Blackberry :)
- RIMberry, on 06/26/2008, -1/+1Incorrect info about the instinct, it comes with a BETTER plan than AT&T for $69.99.
- tama00, on 06/26/2008, -4/+0but can it run crysis?
- TheWindBlows, on 06/26/2008, -0/+2The reason Apple will not allow Adobe to do emulation flash for the iPhone is because flash already works horribly enough on Mac OS X and *nix platforms due to very bad accerations and optimizations that adding emulation in there makes much more bloat than what the iPhone can handle at all. Chances are adding flash support into the iPhone via this method would make the iPhone's battery die much faster and viewing youtube video's would be a horrible experience because the Frames per second are more than likely similar to 15 FPS.
- Shiftgood, on 06/26/2008, -2/+2Hey guys whats up? Im not really here to say anything important, but then again... no one else on this thread really is either.
- Branchex, on 06/26/2008, -0/+12 - No Flash is Adobe's fault by offering nothing but crap to Apple for players.
5 - Lack of cut, copy and paste is something you expect from a traditional cell phone maker not one that has made computer operating systems for decades.
6 - If MMS is useless when you have e-mail then why does it have SMS instead of IM (This is the cell phone industry's fault for propping up 2 ripoff cash cows in SMS and MMS).
7 - Voice dialing is good if you can't look at the screen, like while driving. An app should be able to add it anyway.
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