BlackBox

I hate to join in the chorus of “Me toos” but I was seriously disappointed in today’s keynote from Apple’s World Wide Developers Conference. Honestly it was one of the most non-event keynotes I’ve ever witnessed.

Let’s start from the top.

First, Steve goes over soem old ground with Leopard material with a few new bits in there on the new finder (Now with Coverflow!), stacks, quick look and some new iChat features. Ok, that was to be expected, every developer going to WWDC knew they were getting Leopard so no big surprises that Steve was going ot unveil some more of the OS.

Next came the announcement that Safari was going Windows. My first response was, hunh? My second was, “Well, I guess that is cool.” My third was “Crap, yet another browser to test all my Web stuff on.” Finally I thought, “This has to be part of some bigger plan that Apple has and isn’t ready to unveil yet.”

Then came “One More Thing”, iPhone third-party support through, uh, the Web. Alright, I admit that part of me likes this idea, being able to design a Web app that will interact with the phones features is cool, but this can’t be the solution, no way. Here’s why.

• Offline mode - hello, if I’m on a plane or somewhere with crappy reception there goes the app I was just using
• EDGE sucks - yeah, it’s better than GPRS but not by much. Apparently Cingular (nee AT&T) is beefing up their network to 2.5G but it’s still gonna suck. I’ve been on AT&T’s network - dropped calls, spotty reception, etc. So, every user is going to have to wait for your app to load through the browser before they can use it.
• Two - Three steps to get to an app - now this is pure fiction right now as we don’t know if there’s going to be a way to store an app shortcut anywhere on the iPhone. Launch Safari, type in the address, probably login to said service (most of these are going to have to be secure in some way, it is your data)
• Full power - you just don’t get the full power of the iPhone’s OS through the Web browser. Can anyone say games?

Overall I was very unimpressed with this year’s keynote. I was seriously hoping for a .Mac update (geez does it ever need it, talk about the red-headed step-child of Apple). Hardware updates I can wait for, but I was hoping for some real zingers this time out and it fell flat in my opinion. Now, I’m just going to sit back and wait for Leopard, hopefully fairly soon though I’m going to grab a new Mac Mini and start helping out on this project.

Yeah, I know that this seems really behind the times, and it is. I started writing this just after the iPhone announcement and then forgot about it altogether. But given the fact that I’m looking at phones again, this irks me to no end. T-Mobile’s selections for phones just plain sucks, and honestly I don’t think I’m going to get the SK III as I first thought and have been kinda eyeing the BlackBerry Pearl.

First, let me say, if you’re tired of reading about the iPhone then just skip this entry altogether. These are my personal thoughts on why I won’t buy it, if you don’t care that’s perfectly fine.

Some of you who know me are probably a little surprised that I wouldn’t even consider buying an iPhone. I’ve owned a SideKick 2 for the past 2 or 3 years and really like it alot. I use it when I go back and forth to class browsing some of my favorite blogs and use SMS/Chat to send short messages to friends. When I first saw the iPhone I thought “Damn! Apple has really done the UI right, finally.”

So, why won’t I buy an iPhone?

A lot of the questions that have been coming out are now somewhat answered by David Pogue’s Ultimate iPhone FAQ. I’ll highlight the ones that are Nos that until they are turned to Yeses mean I will not be buying one anytime soon.

Can it be used with anything but Cingular? –No.

I’m sorry but this really irritates me. I’m locked into T-Mobile because Danger has an exclusive deal with them and that pisses me off. Plus I’ve heard nothing but extremely bad things about Cingular since they “merged” with AT&T (they sucked when I was on them before).

Will there be a non-Cingular version? –Not within the first two years.

This just tells me that Apple is playing the Cell providers game and not setting the playing field themselves as they have in the past (read iTunes Store).

Can it run Mac OS X programs? –No.

Mildly irritating, but definitely understandable.

Can I add new programs to it? –No. Apple wants to control the look and feel and behavior of every aspect of the phone.

This is the biggie for me, this is like buying a computer with software that only Apple provides. It’s like them telling me to shut up and like it, well I don’t. This also means that I can’t develop for it which irritates me to no end.

Does it connect to iChat? –No.

Whaaat?!!?

Does it have games? –No.

See previous entry.

Does it have GPS? –No.

Again, WTF?! Come on every new phone out there now (at least that I know of) has this. Come on Apple!

Voice recognition? Voice dialing? Voice memos? –No, although this could change by June when the phone ships.

Ok, if you aren’t going to give me freakin’ buttons to dial with then make it easier to dial.

Does the Web browser support Flash or Java? –No.

I understand the Java part, but no Flash stuff, grrr. On this note, there is nothing that says this won’t do JME (Java Micro Edition) stuff.

Can you change the battery yourself? –No. You’ll have to send the phone in to Apple for battery replacement, just as with the iPods.

Ok, I’ve had 3 cell phones batteries go out on me on previous phones and have been able to replace them. However, I just noticed on my SideKick 2 that I cannot change the battery on this one very easy either. So, hrmmm, oh well.

Now that I’m looking at phones again (specifically ones for T-Mobile) I’m not sure what I’m going to do. I originally thought I’d go with the SideKick III, but after seeing the iPhone I want something with a much better (and bigger) screen and a freakin’ decent web-browser. Just FYI here’s what I use my SK II for: browsing blogs, text messaging, and occasionally sending an e-mail of a link or something interesting (and calling of course).

Also, just noticed an update to the FAQ, good read and some more disappointing answers. I don’t know, I think when it comes down to it I’m going to wait until the iPhone 2.0 comes out and they “fix” some of my gripes, or someone will have come out with a phone that I really like (unfortunately the iPhone is the closest anyone has come since my SK II).