What's wrong with the iPhone

So you probably know by now that I've got an iPhone 3G. My last blog post bemoaning the convoluted methods required to transfer contacts and calendar entries kind of gave that away. So instead of waxing lyrical about how great the iPhone is, I'm going to be a bit more critical and list all the things that are wrong with the iPhone! If you are considering a purchase, think about these things carefully, you may miss them more than you think when they are gone.

No MMS support: I mean really, come on! How long has MMS been around now? Yet Apple have decided to not support this. Crazy.

No SMS folders: Yup, there are no folders on the iPhone for your messages. No sent messages, no drafts etc... Very frustrating. Want to save a message to send later? No can do!

No video recording: It seems that Apple have deemed it unnecessary for the iPhone to support video recording. The 2 mega pixel camera seems to have attracted a lot of press. To be honest I can live with that, the images are pretty good to be fair. But you can't use the iPhone to record video, even low end budget camera phones support this. The iPhone is supposed to be top of the range yet it lacks this feature.

Can't change battery: Yet again, and as seems to be standard on Apple devices, you can't access the battery. This isn't a big issue yet, though it does limit how far you can travel without a re-charge.

No Flash support: The iPhone has a great web browser. Using the internet on the iPhone is a pleasure, not some torturous experience you force yourself to endure like on some other phones. But they missed out a Flash player, this can be so very frustrating when you follow a link to be greeted by a Flash site that just won't work.

No Javascript: Similar to the Flash criticism above. You can become suddenly unstuck when browsing a website when it uses JavaScript. You'd be surprised just how many sites do and won't work on the iPhone as a result.

No cut & paste: This is quite a common complaint, and it is a fully justified one. I've never had cut & paste on a mobile before to be fair, but the iPhone with all its other great features is just crying out for it.

No Flash: No, I'm not repeating myself. The iPhone has no flash, camera flash that is. Forget about taking pictures in a dark environment you won't see anything.

Poor 3G: Okay, not an iPhone problem exactly, but as it's only available on one network I think it qualifies. 3G reception is atrocious, O2 have a really poor 3G network. I've just joined O2 from three, three's 3G network is amazing, they have fantastic coverage. The same cannot be said for O2, and they don't seem to be in a huge rush to roll out improvements either. I live in an area with no 3G coverage from 02, yet three gave me a full strength signal here. Even venturing into a large town only gives me 2-3 bars of 3G signal on the iPhone.

Crippled performance: Even when you do have 3G, the quality is limited. YouTube doesn't perform any better than it did with Edge due to limitations set in the firmware. You aren't allowed to use the iTunes store unless you are connected to a wireless network and the AppStore is limited when using 3G.

Poor Synchronisation: As my previous blog entry explains, sync'ing your iPhone to a Windows PC is a painful experience if you are trying to port contacts and calendar entries but don't use MS Outlook. Work arounds exist, but they shouldn't have to, it should be easy to synchronise with more than just one program.

Bugs I found a bug tonight as well, if you use the stopwatch and hit the lap button then it puts the lap time in the list below but then resets the timer. This behaviour Is wrong, the total time should be cumulative and should not reset at the end of a lap. There are other bugs I've heard about but this is one I came across on my own. Not the end of the world but it makes you wonder how a feature bug like this has made it through testing. I have to add up all the lap times to get a total.

As a whole package the iPhone is fabulous, there are many great things about it. But for Apple to have completely brushed over numerous basic and fundamental mobile phone functions is inexcusable. The first iPhone was always going to be touch and go and mistakes could be forgiven with it being their first foray into the mobile market. But they've had time to listen to consumers now, find out the weak points and fix them. Yet many still remain and Apple seem intent on continuing to ignore them.

Having said all that, I still love it. And I'm not even someone who likes Apple products, I've never had an iPod and never owned a MAC. Something about the iPhone is just special.

Monitor hell!

The saga continues, another call from Staples today, apparently the replacement monitor isn't on its way as promised. I should point out that this isn't a Staples problem, they have been fantastic. The problem now is that Gateway have been taken over by Acer and Gateway will no longer talk to Staples about the issue. They accept they have my old monitor and that it can't be repaired, but won't talk about any sort of resolution. In fact talking to the Staples store manager Gateway (or the company that used to be Gateway) have been very rude to him.

As if this all wasn't bad enough, things are further complicated because I bought the monitor from Staples on-line. Now apparently the bricks and mortar store is a separate company to the on-line retail arm. What this means is that technically the store manager shouldn't have taken my monitor in the first place, however, he did because he's a nice guy and wanted to help. So the whole thing is a bit of a mess!

The store manager has vowed to do everything he can to sort this out for me and is taking a complaint up with his head office. He is hoping that his management might carry more weight and get some answers for me.

I'm pretty confident this guy will follow it through and sort it all out, but I'm not sure where I stand legally now. The whole thing is a bit complicated!