Many have criticized the iPhone for not having a development platform. Apple has said that AJAX is the development platform. Developers saythat’s a lame answer and want integrated apps. I think AJAX may actuallybe the future of mobile devices, but not on the current iteration of hardware. I mean any hardware from anyone, not just the iPhone. Whenever Imention this to my developer and AJAX friends they all look at me like I’mcrazy. I am nuts, but here are a few ways that AJAX or a technology likeit would really kick some major butt on a mobile platform. Below are somerandom thoughts on the subject, feel free to add your own thoughts or call mecrazy in the comments:
- Being able to develop once and deploy to not only iPhones everywhere butany mobile device that’s AJAX enabled would be very powerful.
- Support would become easy because there would only be one version of theapp out there.
- Theft would become easier to control since everyone needs to hit yourserver to authenticate.
- No mobile hardware is ready for this yet. It’s all too slow. Heck a 3GHz computer is barely able to deal with heavy AJAX apps,how is a 400MHz phone going to be able to do the same?
- The AJAX apps need to behave like an integrated app. It shouldn’tfeel like a web app. The browser status bars should all auto hideand make way for the AJAX application.
- There needs to be offline support such as Google Gears for any AJAX app. If I have no or slow bandwidth the mobile device should be able torun the app from cache.
- The device needs uber fast data connection at all times. WiFi is agood first step, HSDPA is a good second step, HSUPA would be a betterstep. EDGE is not on the map anywhere.
- There should be a mobile AJAX standard that all handsets follow. This would allow me to develop an app for an iPhone and have it workon a Windows Mobile, Symbian or Palm device. I won’t hold my breathon this one.
- The AJAX app needs to have hooks to the mobile device. The mobiledevice needs to know what a phone number is, address is, etc. and allow meto dial right from the app. There could be special code snippetsthat tell the device what a phone number is which would get around thedevice itself trying to interpret this. The benefit of tags is thatthe phone always knows what’s what.
- If AJAX is the premiere development platform for the iPhone then why arethere any integrated apps at all? Why not run everything as an AJAXapp (probably because the iPhone isn’t ready for this yet).
- An AJAX app needs to have a button or launcher item just like anintegrated app. n00b users who don’t know AJAX from soap should notbe able to tell the difference between the two apps, which means that eventhe way they launch should be the same.
I know a lot of people have discounted the technology all together, butthere’s potential behind the raw idea. We just need faster devices,more streamlined AJAX (it’s really heavy right now) and some method to keepthe client/server connection open while not drawing uber amounts of powerfrom the device. We’re probably several years off, but it can be done. Will it be done though? I sure think it would be a very cleanway of distributing applications.
At last week’s Inman Connect Conference in San Francisco, moderators including Curbed.com’s Lockhart Steele and Inman conference founder Brad Inman, took questions from the audience over SMS to their iPhones.
This had mixed results. On the positive side, it allowed people to ask questions much more efficiently than they could using a mic since time would be wasted shuttling mics around to questioners. It also allowed moderators to, well, moderate the questions posed via SMS.
However, there were some downsides too. Moderators who were perfectly prepared and capable of asking relevant and interesting questions from panels were occasionally distracted by the barrage of incoming text messages they were receiving, causing them to miss opportunities for follow-up questions. Swiping and scanning questions is not the best use of a moderators expertise and time.
But the most annoying part was the interference caused by the GSM phone radio frequency interfering with the wireless mics used on stage.
From the audience, I could tell when a new text message was received first by the interference on the mics, which drew me away from the conversation I was there to watch.
The concept of taking live questions via SMS is awesome. However, I think it could work better if someone off stage and away from the mic was processing the questions for the moderator. Or, at least use a non-GSM phone like the iPhone if wireless mics are going to be used.
With the hype surrounding the iPhone it seems that everyone wants it to doeverything. Before I start my list of iPhone 2.0 “wants” I thought itwould be prudent to mention that never before have I seen a smartphone sobeautiful, easy to use and powerful. The iPhone does the 4 things I needvery, very well: phone, e-mail, web browsing and SMS. In my opinion theiPhone does these 4 things better than any other device on the market by a verylarge margin. After playing with the device for well over a week I have alist of features I would like to see outside of the normal ringtones and moreYouTube videos and removable battery complaints. Maybe I can do some ofthese things today and I would ask the community to help enhance this list andhelp figure out how to do some of these items:
1 - Better IMAP subscriptions. I already use IMAP as my primarymethod for e-mail. It’s beautiful being able to grab a new device andhave all of my mail download in a couple of minutes with full folder structureand messages. I have a couple of folders that I use primarily offlinesuch as archives and shared mailboxes (yes these show up too unlike theBlackberry, Palm and Windows Mobile devices) that I simply don’t need on theiPhone. While it’s no big deal to ignore these folders it would be niceif I could select which folders I would like to subscribe to like in everyother IMAP client I have used.
2 - Google Docs and Spreadsheets. Did you know that Google Docsworks on the iPhone? Well, it mostly works. You can open yourGoogle Docs account, you can view your list of docs and you can even readyyour documents that you created on your Mac or PC. If you want to starta new doc or edit an existing document, well, you’re out of luck. GoogleDocs appears to only work in read only mode. I know I’m being pickyhere, none of my other smartphones can even do that, but it would be nice totake it to the next level. There may be a reason that I can’t editdocuments and that is…
3 - No cut/copy/paste. Heck, no item selections. EvenWindows Mobile has this! I can’t select a line of text to delete it. I can’t select a line of text to cut/copy/paste it. I simply can’tselect a line of text! Makes it really hard to edit a text document whenyou don’t have simply cut/copy/paste features such as those found in theoriginal Macintosh built in 1984.
4 - IMAP Idle. I would love to know if the mail client supportsIMAP Idle. It seems that I’m getting mail on my iPhone before I get itin my mail account. I know my server supports the idle command, but whatabout the iPhone? It could also be the luck of the draw when it comes toscheduled checks.
5 - Custom SMS Tones. I have always wanted this feature in a smartphoneand to date I have never figured out how to do it on any platform… Iwould like t have different alert sounds for SMS. Just as I can havedifferent ringtones for callers, so too would I like to be able to set updifferent SMS alert tones based on who is sending the message. In myscenario I monitor a series of servers with an outside service that will SMSmy phone when something goes offline. An alarm tone would be nice forthose messages, a tweet tone would be nice for twitter messages and a belltone would be nice for most everything else.
6 - Unified communications. This one is less Apple and moreGrandCentral… I use a GrandCentral phone number to forward calls towhatever phone I want. I was hoping that GrandCentral would haveimplemented SMS forwarding before the iPhone launch so I could migratecompletely to that number. Alas they have yet to announce anything alongthe lines of SMS. My real gripe is that I can not manage my GrandCentralfrom my iPhone. For reasons I don’t understand at all GrandCentralrequires the use of Adobe Flash to log in. What they are doing thatrequires flash is beyond me, but the iPhone does not support flash andGrandCentral requires it. One of the two needs to get this fixed. Of course it would be nice if Apple would support flash but they seem tohave gone out of their way to not support it, so I won’t hold my breath.
7 - Video on the camera. The still camera is beautiful. Notas good as a Nokia N95, but close enough for most users. I find it oddthat I can watch YouTube content on my iPhone but I can’t create any. Iwould love to see Apple create a video camera application to allow me torecord a video, do basic editing (iMovie on my iPhone) and send that toYouTube or e-mail it off to services like Blip or Revver over my not-so-fastEDGE connection. I don’t want to have to carry a video camera with meeverywhere and the iPhone is good enough at photos, now we just need videosupport.
8 - Interaction with AJAXy web pages. The Google Maps app on theiPhone is awesome. What if I want to look at a mashup? What if Iwant to find a home on a site likecoloradohomestop.com? I can see the map, I can see the properties but there’s no way for me tozoom in including the standard google zoom bar. I’ll say that thesesites get a lot further than any other mobile device out there. Mostsmartphones just show the header and then die, the iPhone shows the wholesite. I just can’t use it because I can’t interact with the page. Being that Apple would like to make AJAX the development platform forthe iPhone (yeah right) I think that they should make the Safari browser justa bit better when it comes to being able to interact with web sites.
9 - Bluetooth VCards. I am flabbergasted that I can not send mypersonal VCard to other phones let along other iPhones. If I findanother smartphone user or I’m in a social environment and I want to share mydetails, why can’t I just say ’share card’? This seems to be a hugeoversight on Apple’s part and even dumb phones can do this. The iPhone*has* Bluetooth, why not allow me to select my card from contacts and send toother Bluetooth devices? I can only hope that they had to cut thisfeature to get the phone to market because as it stands this one missingfeature is a huge disappointment.
10 - iTunes integration for all aspects of my new AT&T account. Activating, for me at least, was super easy through iTunes. TheAT&T web site for account management isn’t up to Apple’s level of userfriendliness. I would love to be able to manage my account directly iniTunes. Minutes used, minutes left, upgrade or downgrade my serviceplan, paying my bill or anything having to do with my iPhone. It shouldfeel like one huge integrated service, right now it feels mostly integrated.
With these complains and requests would I go back to my Treo 700wx, Treo 700por Blackberry? Oh hell no. You’ll have to pry my iPhone from myhands! Never before have I seen the web, e-mail and SMS done so well onany other phone. The list of features I would like to see on everyoneelses smartphones is so large it’s not even worth posting. No device isperfect, but I would say that the iPhone is the closest I have seen to date bya very, very long shot. Apple has a few kinks to work out but I have nodoubt that in future iPhone software releases we’ll see a lot of these itemsironed out. As for the above list, anyone have any ideas on how to make someof that stuff work?
Want more lists of things Apple can touch up? Check out AaronLandry’s TenThings Apple Could Quickly Fix With the iPhone
We’re now living in day 11 of a world with iPhones, and are starting to find out
that the beautiful device isn’t perfect.
I’ve yet to hear of someone switching back to their previous phone, but for
those who haven’t made the leap yet, here are a few things to consider before
doing so:
1. Apparently, you can
max
out the SMS storage. While this is common on some basic phones, I don’t
think it’s possible on Treos or most other smartphones. This could be a problem
for heavy Twitter users.
2. Transferring numbers
isn’t
as easy as it should be. I’ve never understood why you can’t pick any area
code you want for a phone. You can with Skype, so why not with a regular phone?
3. Mailbox navigation
can
be tedious. The inability to select multiple items leads to inefficient
inbox housekeeping.
4. Photos
don’t
sync to your computer during the standard sync process. It takes a second
step to pull them off your phone.
5. Power users may
run
into battery issues. Running out of juice before the day is over is a very
bad thing.
Now that the iPhone hype is finally winding down (I think) it feels like a good time to reflect on where the product got it’s start.
Remember the iPod? They still make those non-phone versions of the iPhone.
And here is the first ad for the iPod from back in the day:
This is quite possibly the most boring video ever published to the Internet. Unless you happen to be one of the people who waited in line for an iPhone at the Mall of America or know someone who did.
The first iPhone customer managed to get in and out of the Apple store in under three minutes with the phone he waited 11 hours to buy. Impressive.
However, at just over 3 minutes long, I’m sure there will be enough viewers to justify publishing this. That’s the power of the Internet over traditional media, who’d never consider running 3+ minutes of people filing into a store.
If you’re not interested, just move along.
I had an interesting experience with my brand new iPhone: it didn’t work. I would have full signal from AT&T, even in my basement (which seemsto be the only provider to do so) and then all of a sudden… Nothing. Noservice. I would not get service back until I power cycled the phone atwhich point I would get full service back. If I simply cycled the radiofrom on to off by turning the Airplane mode on then off I would get the message’invalid SIM’. This happened to me about 5 times in 24 hours and indifferent locations, so it wasn’t isolated. This told me I may have a badSIM card and decided to pop in to an AT&T store to have it checked out (Idon’t think Apple can deal with SIM cards, but I may be mistaken, I only triedAT&T).
When I got to my local AT&T store the manager was on the phone with what Ican only assume is someone high up at Apple or AT&T talking about thesurge of SIM card replacements they have been doing. I went to AT&Tso that I could get a new SIM card and have them activate it as to avoid anyregistration problems in iTunes. Alas, that’s about the only thing theycan’t do. It appears that AT&T can’t even see any SIM information oniPhone user accounts whatsoever so all they can do is hand me a new card andhave me install it and reactivate via iTunes. I had no choice. Igot a new SIM card and decided to test and post the process here for otherusers that may run in to the same issue, and it appears that there are many,many users with this issue.
For those who need to install a new SIM here’s what you need to do: power off your iPhone by holding the power button atop the device for 5seconds. Slide your finger over the power confirmation screen. Geta small paperclip and insert it in the small hole on the top of the iPhone. A SIM card tray will pop out. Remove the old SIM card and placeyour new SIM card into the tray with the metal side facing out. Insertthe tray back in to the iPhone and power the device back on.
The iTunes reactivation process is quite simple. When I powered on myiPhone after inserting the new SIM it locked out and asked me to re-activatethe device. I plugged it in to iTunes and selected ‘replace a line on myexisting account’. There were a couple of areas that made it look like Iwas going to get double billed but I advanced anyway. When I was done Iwent back to the AT&T store and asked what the billing for my accountwould look like. All was well, no double billing, no re-activation fee,we were golden. If you get screens that make it look like you’ll getdouble billed make sure to call AT&T to ensure that you won’t, I can onlysay that my account wasn’t. The only issue I found is that my 2-yearservice contract started from the moment I added the new SIM, not the originalactivation date. Since that was only about a 12 hour difference I didn’treally care; however, if you are reading this article in our archives and havehad your iPhone for a while make sure to call AT&T to see if there is abetter way to activate a new SIM otherwise you’ll be locked into a new 2 yearcontract.
After reading a bit on Twitter about users having issues I think they may wantto consider the idea that they too may have a bad SIM card. I don’t knowif Apple can help them at all, but AT&T was actually quite friendly andhelpful. The total transaction time was not very long and they knewexactly how to process the order in their system. Results may vary basedon location.
After replacing my SIM card I have yet to have any issues. My iPhone hasnot lost connection and is whizzing along beautifully. Seems thatAT&T may have given Apple a bad batch of SIM cards, a very large badbatch.
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