01.10.07
Why The iPhone Isn’t A Revolution
Like many Mac converts I watched the keynote speech from the Macworld Expo last night. Unlike many Mac fans I left feeling a bit disappointed. Although Ian shares many of the same misgivings I have.
The obvious star of the show was the brand new iPhone and while I was disappointed that there was no new news on computer hardware or the upcoming OS X upgrade, I was still very interested to see how Apple would ‘reinvent the phone’.
Two good things immediately leapt out at me, the design of the thing and the User Interface. The design looks very sexy, although with a black touchscreen I wonder how many seconds it will take to get covered in fingerprints and earsweat. The User Interface does indeed look lovely and the multitouch screen seems intuitive to use. All the applications tie nicely together and it is this, rather than anything else that separates it from Smartphones.
The rest I’m afraid was a bit disappointing. While the iPhone’s applications appear to work well and the Safari browser looks particularly nice, there doesn’t seem to be enough applications. Everything the iPhone can do my current smartphone can do.
- Web browsing and Email? Check!
- Google Maps? Check!
- Music player? Check!
- Videoplayer? Check!
- Bluetooth and Wifi? Check!
- Use a finger to poke soft-buttons? Check!
- Switch between Landscape and portrait? Check! (With a cool transformers type move).
- Phone with SMS? Check!
- Ignore 3G? Errrmmm…actually my phone supports 3G.
To be fair to the iPhone, it does look a lot easier to use than my current smartphone and some of the applications look nicer, but it is hardly a ‘revolution’.
It is not just the lack of ‘revolution’ that bothers me, it is some of the things that were left unsaid that are worrying.
The Smartphone platform has hundreds of applications, it’s easy to get your hands on a development platform for Windows Mobile. This has lead to a spree of development, including the traditional ‘one man in his bedroom’ development houses. Jobs didn’t mention how applications would be developed for the iPhone. I would have been happier with an announcement that Apple would be updating Xcode to allow for mobile programming, currently I have the fear that development for the new platform will be closed off. I’m hoping that an announcement that you can use Xcode and that development will be open will happen closer to the iPhone’s launch.
My mobile at the moment has several offline maps, an offline copy of wikipedia, an ebook application, an IM client, a couple of games, Pocket versions of MS Word and Excel, Java, Skype, Tom Tom navigator, an IRC client , a photo editing app and something that will play pretty much every video format out there. These extra applications have expanded my phone in a frankly ridiculous manner.
Without easy 3rd party coding, the iPhone simply won’t have the codebase for it becoming the ‘one-stop-shop’ of mobile communications. Instead people will have to be drip-fed applications from Apple and a few ‘licensed’ developers.
And was it just me who found his “we will defend our patents” a bit scary? I guess that means that if you want a multi-touch screen, Apple will be the only place to get it.
The keyboard on the screen? Nice, but there isn’t any tactile feedback and, while it may just be a personal taste, I like feeling my thumbs sliding over a real keyboard. Battery life seems pretty good, I wonder how long it lasts on Standby.
The other big killer for me is that lack of an SD slot. With SD card prices being very affordable these days it becomes easy to expand your phone’s storage, it is also an incredibly easy way of transferring photos from your digital camera into a photo editing app.
My Smartphone syncs up to my Mac using the excellent MissingSync 3rd party software and it moves across my contacts, calendars and more exactly like the new iPhone.
So – not a revolution, but the UI does look very droolworthy.
Oh, and AppleTV? I do that at the moment with my Macbook and DVI to Composite connector, and I’m not tied to iTunes DRM either.
Technorati Tags: iPhone, Apple, stevejobs, Keynote, smartphone
Chris said,
January 10, 2007 at 16:58
I think the “revolutionary” thing isn’t WHAT you can do, but HOW you can do it. I don’t know any other phones that only have one button!
My boyfriend phoned me up last night babbling on about the “new iPhone, isn’t it fantastic? I almost fell off my chair!”
And I was just not bothered. But the more I look, the more impressed I am.
Dave Goodman said,
January 10, 2007 at 18:31
Great thoughts Tom. I notice you have the same smartphone as me – thanks for the tip on the MissingSync software – I’m about to get a Mac and was getting a bit worried about that aspect.
Is there any chance you could list the various bits of software you use? I have quite a bit of good 3rd party stuff on my phone, but some of the bits and pieces you have sound pretty sweet.
Gordon said,
January 10, 2007 at 20:08
I guess the whole “my smartphone can already do XYZ” argument is easily laid to rest by invoking the “My PC can do what your Mac” can do clause.
Yes, it does the same thing but it’s more about HOW it does it… apparently.. I don’t have a Mac, you tell me!
As for the touchscreen…
Well, from various reports I think (THINK!) they’ve gone with a sort of protective cover on it. Sounds VERY like the same stuff I bought for my Nano, it’s clear, you can’t tell it’s there and you get a very subltely ’soft’ touch, grease doesn’t really cling to it, and you don’t get many fingerprints. (The thing I bought is called The Invisible Shield if you are wondering).
However, as you touch on, it’s just another part of the ‘convergance’ that Nokia waffle on about. So, pick a vendor people, Microsoft or Apple? (or, like most, a mixture of the two with some better 3rd party apps doing the main work…).
The times they are a changin’, an old croaky man once sang. Indeed they are, indeed they are.
Tom Reynolds said,
January 10, 2007 at 21:12
Part of my point is that unless they open up the develpoment for third party apps it’ll be an easy to use, good looking phone – but it just won’t be as versatile as a smartphone.
Ian Forrester said,
January 12, 2007 at 1:42
Good analysis Tom (wish I’d wrote much more now). The development issue is actually much more important that I’d first thought. A friend of mine, looked for the SDK and documentation for the iPhone and found nothing. Aka Apple are keeping this one safely locked away from the developers.
I also think the iPhone will not run all the widgets you get on your mac right now. Which means you won’t be able to use that clipping feature in OSX 10.5 to create your own.
As far I can tell the there are tweaks which do challenge the standard phone models, but compared to a decent Windows Mobile device its not so clear. I expect by the time it rolls into Europe, HTC will have made most of the non-patented changes. Evolution not Revolutionary is what it is.
Tom Reynolds said,
January 12, 2007 at 1:48
Ian – I’d heard similar which is one reason why I didn’t want to wait around before moaning about it…