Pmabey's blog

Separated from my iPhone: 5 things I Love and 5 things I Hate (about the iPhone)

Recently, and presently, I am without my iPhone.  It's a first generation (2G) iPhone, with the nice, and in my opinion, classier, metal back.  I've had it since April, but only officially activated it 6 weeks ago... and it is broken.

To be more specific, the Ringer/Silent switch has broken, and just flaps about ineffectually.  Unfortunately, it decided to stop working just as I switched the phone to Silent, so that I cannot hear a ringtone, any of the alerts for texts arriving, alarms, and some game sounds as well.  It's a bit useless like this really, and so I have had to try and get it fixed.

Apple (via my local O2 store, who are almost as ineffectual as the broken switch) have refused a repair, citing water damage as the reason.  Yes, I momentarily (we're talking 100ths of a second) dunked my iPhone, top end first, into a cup of Coffee a few weeks ago.  I did all the stuff you're supposed to, and it has been working absolutely fine since, but Apple had a get-out and they used it!  That was 7 days without the iPhone.

In fairness, it possibly was corrosion caused by this momentary dunk in the Coffee, that caused the malfunction somewhere inside the iPhone, and so I have had to pay for the repair myself.  Not via Apple's extortionate repair but via some ethereal Internet service which I await the results of before commenting.  Of course, this voids my Warranty, for what good it did me anyway.  I'm now looking at another 7-10 days without the iPhone.

This has lead me to a constant, and unhealthy, longing for the iPhone in my hands, whose desperate sadness and comment on my pathetic life has not gone unnoticed by my wife.  However, this has led me to think about just WHY(?) I feel this desperate loss for a stupid phone/gadget.

And so, here is my difficult-for-me-to-define list of the top 5 things I Love about my iPhone, and, to try and show some semblance of balance, the top 5 things I Hate about it (the first 2 'Hates' were really easy, it's not perfect).  Yes, I am aware that a lot about this has been said before, but not by me, so here goes:

LOVE:

1. The GUI (Graphical User Interface) - This has long been Apple's forte and the cut down OSX on the iPhone is just gorgeous to look at.  Combined with the innovative and much copied Touch interface, it is honestly the best I have ever used (and I've tried other Touch enabled devices)
2. The App Store - Whilst I have dabbled in the world of Jailbreaking with 1.1.4 and the Apps available, it was all a bit underground and hit-and-miss.  But when Apple released the App Store and 2.0, it just gelled and works really well, for me at least.  I've never used a device in virtually every part of my life before.  This is why I miss it SO much.
3. The form factor - It took me a little while to get used to the size of the iPhone, coming from an LG Shine, which is a lot smaller.  But immediately, the weight and relative robustness of it just felt right in my hand.  It took a little longer getting used to holding such a large phone to my face, but now every other phone in my hand feels feeble and too fiddly. Some very clever and careful design has gone into this, as with most (not all) Apple products.
4. Games - I'm not a mega-gamer, but I have always tried to find decent games, usually Java, on other mobile phones, and they have usually been poorly written, cut down versions of games, with diddy graphics that are hard to see on such a small screen.  The iPhone, of course, has the processing power, onboard graphics, and massive (for a mobile) screen, that just cries 'PLAY GAMES ON ME!!'.  The recent 're-launch' of the iPod Touch shows just that.  It was definitely positioned as a gaming machine, with Apple focussing mostly on games in it's presentation of the new features.  Of course this implies the same for the iPhone.
5. All-in-one device - if you look further down this blog, you'll see some things I posted about the iPhone when I first got it, and jailbroke it, so that I could do more on it.  Back then, I raved about the all-in-one nature of the device, and this view has just got stronger and stronger. I can watch videos/movies/DVDs/Podcasts, listen to a good chunk of my music and podcasts, take photos, check and send e-mail, text, browse the Internet, read RSS, play awesome, even 3D, games, and do all the stuff that the new App Store allows me to do (literally hundreds of things), all on one device. Occassionally, I even take or make phone calls!  There is hardly anything it doesn't do, that I need to.  BUT, it isn't perfect and there are a few things that bug me still, and that leads me nicely on to...
   

HATE (or mini-rants):

1. No MMS - seriously, have Apple never heard of MMS on Mobile phones?  Every mobile I have had recently does MMS.  It is just standard, basic, no-brainer - no, not everyone can do e-mail on their phone in the UK, sorry! I was extremely happy to hear that the brilliant and easy to use jailbreak app SwirlyMMS has been released on 2.0.
   
2. Crippled Bluetooth - especially file transfer.  Again, every mobile phone I have had in the last 5 years at least has been able to send a photo/video/file to another Bluetooth phone.  It is fundemental. And No, Apple, my family and friends DO NOT have e-mail on their phones!
   
3. No Video Recording - it is possible, I've got half-decent results from jailbreak app iPhoneVideoRecorder, so why not do it officially?
4. Only a 2 Megapixel camera - g iven the right ligthing conditions, the iPhone's camera isn't bad, but it's certainly nowhere near the best mobile camera, and better resolution and image processing would be very welcome and make it even more indispensable.
   
5. Apple's restrictions for developers - So the conversation goes,
   

"Let me show you my awesome new iPhone from Apple, look at what it can do!"
"Oh yeah, that's really nice, can you Bluetooth me that photo?"
"Um, No, sorry."
"Oh, Ok, just MMS it to me then."
"Ah, I can't do that either."
"Oh!"
"But I can e-mail it to you."
"I can't get e-mail on my phone, weirdo, I'll have to wait til I get home, then start up my PeeCee and fire up Outlook Express to get the e-mail, save the attachment, and then connect my phone via USB and start up the awful 'Nokarolasson' software and transfer it across, which always takes ages! Don't bother, it's too much hassle."

That's just one instance and this issue affects Nos. 1, possibly 2, and 3 on this list of 'Hates'.  Apple has closed off certain parts of the hardware and OS within the iPhone, so that Apps can't run in the background (like an IM for instance), or access certain functionality, and so at the moment Jailbreaking is the only choice for some of this stuff.  The Bluetooth part of the OS is not available to anyone, even with Jailbreaking, as far as I know.  We are at the mercy of Apple on a lot of this stuff, and they probably have some very good reasons to restrict their device and avoid the buggy, crashy type of OS that some of their competitors have had.  But it still annoys me that some stuff you would definitely want on your all-in-one phone is missing.

                                                                                                                                 

If you have got this far, congratulations, and thank you for letting me rant.  I've been totally self-indulgent here, but it's been cathartic too.  This stuff has been buzzing round in my head for a couple of weeks now, and that's why I've stuck it here on my slightly neglected blog.

You may disagree entirely with some or all of this, so feel free to comment or disregard it all completely.

Ross-on-Wye

This morning we went to one of the main towns I had heard of in this area, Ross-on-Wye. It was interesting to see how fast the river ran as we walked alongside it for a short walk before letting the kids have a go in the play park for a while. Then we went in to the actual town, which is ok, lots of small shops and some small versions of normal town shops. Not sure what the fuss is about though.

There was a great old time sweet shop for us tourists with the sweets in big jars like they used to be and you could buy a quarter of Aniseed Twists or Kola Cubes. But what impressed me most was the old Basset Sherbet fountains with the licquorice straw. I loved those when I was a kid. I remember eating the last bits with a teaspoon, ah, I'm such a bid...

The shop browsing quickly came do an end when the heavens opened and it rained solidly for the rest of the afternoon.

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Guess where we are

Just stopped hammering it down, now we've got blue sky and are looking for somewhere to eat - that's cheap!

Hereford

In the middle of nowhere

Here is our home for the next week. We managed to find it without any mishaps, which is unusual. The traffic was very heavy so it took nearly 2 hours to get to the motorway then another 2 hours from there but our nice new car made that a little easier to bear.

We are all looking forward to our week away though. Hope the weather holds out...

The Barn

Back Door Slam - Blues done right

This trio of 19/20 year old lads, from the Isle of Man, are amazing, primarily the lead singer, guitarist, lap steel, mandolin player, Davy Knowles.  His guitar playing and singing talent is unmatched by any 19 year old I have seen.  These guys have immersed themselves in the modern blues to the point where it just oozes from them, especially when heard live.  Not that I have myself, ...yet.  They seem to be ensconced in a tour of all the cool spots for Blues player in the States at the moment.

Check out their official website.  I may just be buying their debut album (iTunes link) very soon.

To give you a taste of their awesomeness check out this video.  It is a live rendition of them playing Hendrix's 'Red House' with an awesome solo showing Davy's guitar skills from about 4 mins.  See what you think:

BACK DOOR SLAM, 'Red House'

The clean engine

One of the best things about having a brand new (in my case, Lease) car is seeing everything in its unused 'virgin' state. Here's the view under the bonnet of our new Touran after only 36 miles. It will never be this clean again probably, so I thought I would take a photo.

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iPhone games

As well as bleating on to all who will listen about how great my new all-in-one device is, and how it does all the stuff I used several devices for before (because it's all-in-one you see) I have been revelling in nostalgia due to the fact that the iPhone can run emulators

Now the Playstation emulator is too slow and 'work in progress' like to be useful but the NES emulator is just superb. I have rediscovered some of my favourite timewasters including the inimitable simplicity of Donkey Kong. I remember seeing the arcade version of this when I was very young, and the NES version was a faithful port.

The SNES emulator is good too, but no sound support yet, which is a shame, and I haven't got around to trying the GBA emulator yet. But from my experience of the NES emulator, I would highly recommend it. Now, in addition to my music, snapshot camera, video camera, diary, contacts, webapps, etc., in my pocket, I also carry a classic gaming console for those 15 mins inbetween appointments that I occasionally get, and did I mention that this is an all-in-one device? Get that iPod Touch or iPhone jailbroken!

Just so you can envision it, here's a look at what I see on screen, the controls are part of the touch screen and it only takes a few minutes to get used to not having real buttons to press, especially for the less complicated games.

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Customising the iPhone

1 week in and I am unhealthily obsessed with just how much I can customise my iPhone. There is a fantastic, thriving developer community producing great little pieces of software to add functionality to the iPhone. Most of this is free too.

One of my favourites is the Summerboard app allowing you to control the look of most of the iPhone's OS. And there is a built-in screen capture tool that once enabled allows you to add screengrabs like this one as if it was a photo taken with the camera, just brilliant!

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Vox Hunt: Looking Back on March

Show us something that represents how the month of March went for you.

 Sleepless nights, comatose days at work, when will it end?.....

Guitar Rising - game teaches real guitar chops

Awesome - now this is what I wanted to see when the guitar hero games came out.  A game that actually teaches people to play guitar for real!  And there's a Mac version planned, hurrah.  Can't wait.  I just hope it's not vapour-ware.

Check out the article at CrunchGear for the video.