iPhones & iPods: Shame on Apple and the IPhone 3G

Shame on Apple and the IPhone 3G

I am sorry, I have to vent. This is the 4th time I have to re-install the IPhone Operating System software. I am sick of it. I speak from ONLY my experiences and MY views on the IPhone 3G. These are my TOP pet peeves, and TOP complaints that make me say, SHAME ON APPLE.

1) Shame on Apple for releasing a new product (IPhone 3G) that is obviously not ready for prime time. I have been in the IT field for almost 30 years. If I were to release (or approve for release) a product like this to the general pubic in the state that it is in, I would have been fired. Remember, this is a PHONE FIRST! Stability is a MUST!! God forbid I am in desperate need to make a call and I get the Apple logo!! OMG!!! STABILITY! STABILITY! STABILITY!

2) Shame on Apple for not having an Operating system that is protected from errant 3rd party software. Shoot, even Windows Op system has a protected mode for their operating system so that it cannot be corrupted easily (operating word here is EASILY). This is the 4th time I had to re-install the operating software from ITunes. This is because of bugs in the operating system software as well as 3rd party software that make the phone functionality impaired or even worse, useless.

3) Shame on Apple for a version of ITunes that at best is buggy. Everything from corrupted backups to issues with syncing to issue with the App store. I will get to backups in the next bullet. But I have seen issues with syncing Calendar and Contacts, issues with updating 3rd party software. All of these are in blogs galore. I will not enumerate them all here. But you all know what I am talking about. If not, Google, “ITunes 7.7 sync issues”.

4) Shame on Apple for having Backups that are useless. And I MEAN useless. From HOURS to do backups (hey, remember what I said about this being a PHONE FIRST! I can’t tie up my phone for HOURS on end), to not keeping track of past backups to corrupted backups. Now let me give my 2 cents on all of this. First, the customer should have options to do FULL backups or INCREMENTAL backups. After a FULL backup (which might take some time, not HOURS, but some time), an incremental backup should be quick. Only changes from the past backup should be captured. Of course, if you want to do multiple full backups, that should be your choice. Incremental backups would mean that ITunes would have to keep track of past backups. What a wonderful surprise I found when I had to do my last restore of the IPhone Operating system software, that I only had the LAST backup in my list. This was even though I did a backup every time it was requested from ITunes. And of course, there was another wonderful surprise to find that the LAST backup was corrupted. Apple, SHAME ON YOU!! You mean you cannot do a verify on a backup?? Or have the option for a verify of a backup? Shoot, this is Computer Science 101. It might take longer to do the backup with a verify, but if we were allowed incremental backups, it would be pretty quick.

5) Shame on Apple for not allowing the customer to replace the battery! This is a pet peeve of mine. SHAME!! SHAME!! SHAME!! This is the only phone that I know of that does not allow you to replace the battery without doing heart surgery. I mean.. Sheesh, with 3G, GPS, Bluetooth, IPOD, and cell phone usage, how could you NOT allow a replaceable battery. Why should I have to cripple my phone by turning off features so I can conserve battery life. It defeats the purpose of having the functionality there in the first place.

6) Shame on Apple for having no stereo Bluetooth. Mmm, let me try and wrap my little brain around this. You have an IPod within the IPhone, and you don’t allow stereo Bluetooth? What brainiac thought to leave this out?

7) A BIG Shame on Apple for not allowing existing power adapters and other IPod and IPhone 2G products from working on IPhone 3G. I know, to tell with the consumer, make them PAY PAY PAY. Buy more equipment. I mean, it couldn’t be that hard to allow my existing IHome alarm clock to recharge my IPhone 3G. Or have my Honda IPod adapter charge my IPhone 3G. Interestingly, the functionality works on both these devices, but they don’t recharge the phone. And with a non-replaceable battery, I am using my ONLY battery to play on these devices. I mean, comeon Apple, have some compassion for the consumer.

8) Shame on Apple for having no cut/paste. I won’t beat a dead horse on this. It has been blogged to dead. But don’t tell me that in a YEAR, you didn’t have enough time to get this in? Ever heard of hiring more programmers????? There are a lot of unemployed ones that would LOVE a job. This can’t be rocket science.

9) Shame on Apple for being to tight fisted with their APIs. Not allowing programmers to exchange ideas (because of Non-disclosure) is a disservice to programmers as well as the eventual customer.

10) Shame on Apple for not allowing software to be memory resident so that they can run in the background. Well, I guess we need a stable PROTECTED Operating system before we allow this feature. So I can see why Apple might be cautious.