3 Reasons Why I Hate The iPhone

I’ve always been told hate is a strong word when describing one’s feeling towards something and boy am I glad it is. The anticipation, the suspense, the rumors, and the speculation all get to be too much and I’ve about had it. Even though I’m ready to punch the next blogger in the face who so much as suggests Apple is piling on new features before June 29th, I’ll still buy an iPhone, but that doesn’t mean I can’t describe my feelings about the wait.

Too Much Hype
Since January 9th, 2007, the amount of noise generated about Apple’s iPhone, a device we have yet to hold in our hands, has been unprecedented. There is no review of an iPhone yet, little to no benchmarks and no videos of what it can really do, but there is an occasional morsel of information that slips through only to be debated upon for what seems like an eternity, and a teaser put out by those who are very close to Steve Jobs. But who is creating the hype? Not Apple, not AT&T, but us. We don’t know enough to truly judge the iPhone or to make an accurate buying decision; this thing could be the buggiest 1.0 product Apple has ever released. Yet we still talk about, we still give Apple the free marketing they want (guilty as charged) and through this we saved them oh, about 400 million dollars in advertising.

But throughout the hype, there has been massive confusion. False facts have been tossed around and our attempts to make corrections have been neglected by a wave of uncertainty. I’ve considered delaying my iPhone purchase until either the next revision or major update and no doubt others have considered the same course of action. All this hype has done for Apple and AT&T is keep people anticipated for June 29th when you can finally buy an iPhone in stores or possibly online. Both of these companies didn’t have to lift a finger, just keep things under wraps but not so tight that potentially false information couldn’t crawl out.

Even though people will want the iPhone more and more, the massive hype machine may persuade buyers to purchase other devices. If someone was comparing smart phones for a potential purchase they’d either have to wait a while, only to possibly be displeased by the lack of features generated by the hype machine, or rely on rumors and speculation for the basis of their decision. Very little has been confirmed about the iPhone, and this could ward off not-so-serious buyers. Even the amount of confusion is very annoying. I honestly never thought there would be enough news per day to fuel our iPhone-focused Blog iPhone Matters, but I seem to be wrong.

The Contradictions
When announced in January, Steve met all of our expectations regarding how a mobile device should be designed…well, almost all of them. One of the most heralded features of the iPhone is that it’s capable of displaying the full Internet, not the half-baked version nor the watered-down version but the full Internet. Yeah, right: the iPhone does not support Flash or Java. These are major components of web browsers and by skipping on them you do not have the full-featured Internet that other desktop-based browsers allow. A lot of videos and applications are in the Flash format (YouTube being a prime example) so the lack of this totally contradicts Steve Jobs and a recent commercial touting the iPhone’s advanced Internet capabilities. Skipping Flash in order to promote a better format for video content is not a valid reason to exclude it, a Flash Plug-In as well as H.264 support could both exist on the iPhone without conflicting.

Another contradiction Apple has made regarding the iPhone is the status of their applications. They claim the iPhone will sport true desktop-class apps but last I checked this isn’t an easy goal to reach without a real SDK for developers. True web apps are gaining capabilities left and right but hardly measure up to their offline counterparts. These apps can only be free while containing a certain number of features for so long before advertising comes into play or even a subscription model. I’d love to see how a Google ad wouldn’t bother your browsing experience when using online applications.

Lack of resource utilization
I’ve got to hand it to Microsoft for one thing regarding their hardware: they sure know how to utilize their resources better than Apple has. The Zune has wireless sharing enabled, allowing you to send songs and photos, and the Xbox 360 can stream media wirelessly to your TV. And what can the iPhone do? None of these, but I’m sure Steve wouldn’t have forgotten an important feature such as this. Nonetheless the iPhone should be able to stream and interact with devices via Wi-Fi or Bluetooth. How cool would it be to include something like this into the iPhone, allowing it to possibly control an Apple TV. Or why not stream content from an AppleTV or Mac to an iPhone?

And why forget 3G on the launch model, eh? Edge and Wi-Fi are our only real options to get an Internet connection, but hotspots aren’t everywhere. Perhaps I would like to use Google Maps in no man’s land when traveling where a wireless internet connection does not exist. EDGE would be perfect because it might be available in the area but I cannot justify paying 30 to 40 dollars a month for near dial-up speeds.

Still, Apple needs to get its act together on the iPhone’s wireless functions. If they would allow Software updates from the phone itself and downloading from the iTunes store then this would be a perfect option for anyone wanting a computer in their pocket. Apple could even offer a high-end version of the phone that accomplishes this. Surely you think I jest but I’m serious, if Apple knew how to better utilize the resources of an iPhone, every other mobile media device would be blown out of the water.