What’s Wrong with the iPhone?
Apple is what is wrong with the iPhone. Apple tightly controls several aspects of the phone. The software development interfaces don’t allow you to access some of the core data on the phone. This means you won’t find a great replacement calendar in the App Store. In addition, Apple also does not allow programs to run in the background while the phone is off. This means that 3rd party programs can’t trigger your phone to awake if a new IM message appears or you reach a specific GPS coordinate. Forget about taking “Remember the Milk” to a whole new level by alerting the user when they drive by that convenience store on the way home!
If Apple had done a better job at some of the core programs this might not have been as big of an issue. The calendar program is attractive but is very lacking. I’ve listed a few items below:
- Calendar Entries cannot be emailed. This was a real let down for me.
- Calendar has almost no settings that can be changed. I’d love a default 15 minute alarm. Wouldn’t you?
- No task list integration
- No iCal support for external calendars, this should be simple
- No OTA calendar synchronization
If there was an open API in this area, and you could convince Apple to put the program on it’s “App Store” there would be an answer overnight.
The second big issue is programs running in the background. Apple might have some good reasons for this but certainly there is a way to provide a hook or some rules to “protect” the platform. Even Windoze Mobile programs could do this (ouch). Let’s say I download a great streaming music program and want to browse the web or read an ebook. Not on the iPhone. Only the Apple iPod program can play music in the background and they don’t support streaming audio!
Apple please don’t forget that the “open market” principles work best on your platform and App Store too!
