Crappy Aspects of the iPhone
A couple of weeks ago, I reluctantly acquired an iPhone.
My wife and I were forced into a new phone purchase by AT&T (ah yes, the return of a monopoly!), which discontinued the TDMA service and killed off our old phone. We were perfectly happy with it and with the super-low $30 plan we were on, but AT&T (the former Cingular) required us to both buy a new phone and, if we were to stay with them, "upgrade" to a plan that cost more money and suited us less.
But that's a post for another Crappy Software day. What I want to chronicle today is the iPhone's shortcomings. Actually, for the most part, I'd say the iPhone is filled with longcomings or shortgoings, or whatever the opposite of shortcomings might be. I'm 75% pleased with it, but that remaining 25% is driving me a little crazy.
25% iPhone Crap:
The biggest iPhone failings are in the Department of The iPhone as a PDA Replacement:
So I'm stuck. No suitable, acceptable desktop calendar app which which to sync my iPhone.
And Apple, how hard would it be to come up with a task manager? In this respect, I guess I'll have to go with a Web-based manager. Remember the Milk looks promising, but I'm not ready to fully commit to it.
I'm already sorely missing a password manager. I've seen some Web-based solutions proposed for this, but I don't feel comfortable trusting my most-secret passwords to some online service. It looks like I may have to keep using my Palm PDA solely for this purpose. I've got a great password manager on that: SplashID. Oh, if only it were ported to the iPhone!
My wife and I were forced into a new phone purchase by AT&T (ah yes, the return of a monopoly!), which discontinued the TDMA service and killed off our old phone. We were perfectly happy with it and with the super-low $30 plan we were on, but AT&T (the former Cingular) required us to both buy a new phone and, if we were to stay with them, "upgrade" to a plan that cost more money and suited us less.
But that's a post for another Crappy Software day. What I want to chronicle today is the iPhone's shortcomings. Actually, for the most part, I'd say the iPhone is filled with longcomings or shortgoings, or whatever the opposite of shortcomings might be. I'm 75% pleased with it, but that remaining 25% is driving me a little crazy.
25% iPhone Crap:
The biggest iPhone failings are in the Department of The iPhone as a PDA Replacement:
- On Windows, the iPhone calendar only syncs with Microsoft Outlook.
- There is no task manager, and thus no task manager to sync with a desktop application.
- There is no password manager.
So I'm stuck. No suitable, acceptable desktop calendar app which which to sync my iPhone.
And Apple, how hard would it be to come up with a task manager? In this respect, I guess I'll have to go with a Web-based manager. Remember the Milk looks promising, but I'm not ready to fully commit to it.
I'm already sorely missing a password manager. I've seen some Web-based solutions proposed for this, but I don't feel comfortable trusting my most-secret passwords to some online service. It looks like I may have to keep using my Palm PDA solely for this purpose. I've got a great password manager on that: SplashID. Oh, if only it were ported to the iPhone!
posted by Jeremy Butler at 10:06 AM
2 Comments:
Outlook is annoying but I find its calendar is great. However the iPhone calendar is a joke. Say you want to add a simple appointment with a reminder 15 mins prior:
What you would expect:
Tap on the calendar at the time you want, type in the title of the appointment, and tap OK.
What do you actually have to do?
Tap the Add button, this opens an Add Event screen, then tap the title field (it doesnt even select this by default), this opens a tile & Location screen, type the title, tap save, tap the time field, this opens a Start & End screen, set the start time using a bizarre scroll wheel where your finger obscures the times you are scrolling, tap Save,tap the Alert field, tap 15 mins, tap save, tap done.
No preferences of any kind for default reminders etc, very frustrating...
Update 22 July 2008:
Last week the Apple "apps" store opened -- offering hundreds of third-party applications for the iPhone. About damn time, I say.
Included among these apps are my favorite password manager (SplashID) and numerous task managers. I've installed the former. It works! But it definitely has some rough edges that need to be smoothed out (like frequent crashes while editing entries). That's okay. I'm willing to be patient and suffer through virtual beta testing as the SplashID publishers appear to be committed to getting it to work (judging from the activity on their forums).
I may wait on the task manager, however, to see which one rises to the top and has the fewest bugs. I have been using Remember the Milk, an online task manager and I like it pretty well; but I'd much prefer a task manager that doesn't require a Web browser and Internet connection. I want one that lives within the iPhone and syncs to every computer I own!
Post a Comment
<< Home