My brother, the cinematographer, is a MAC kinda guy. So, naturally he packs an iPhone of which he is very proud. While visiting me last week he was showing off the virtues of his iPhone with a bit of a smug air and a tinge of superiority.
He quickly established that the iPhone makes phone calls, surfs the Web, does email and SMS, takes pictures, and it does it all on a really cool, high-resolution, finger-friendly touch screen.
Iphone Application
Perhaps a little reluctantly, he let me try it. You use your finger to scroll around, but you can't use the keyboard or a joystick 5-way button because they don't exist. You can even zoom in or out on a screen or photo by pinching your fingers together or spreading them apart-very cool.
This is fine until you get to a Web page that has many hyperlinks such as a Google search. Try to expand, contract, or scroll the screen, and the slightest touch invokes the hyperlink and drives you nuts.
By the way, you can not only finger scroll all you want to on a Window Mobile device but you can also configure transitions between pages like in PowerPoint, which you can't do on an iPhone.
During the course of his visit, the true colors of the iPhone emerged. Here is a condensed list of 25 things that I discovered an iPhone doesn't have or can't do:
1. It won't perform simple computer operations such as word processing, spreadsheets, relational databases, and PowerPoint presentations.
2. You can't use your own MP3 sounds to make ringtones.
3. No GPS
4. No MMS
5. No expansion slots
6. No flash camera
7. Doesn't take videos
8. Doesn't have dual cameras for video conferences and self-portraits
9. There's no QWERTY keyboard or even a phone keypad. Instead, it has a klutsy popup input panel. It took me five minutes to type my name correctly without any errors owing to my fingers being on the gorilla end of the scale. The input panel is made for fingers of a five-year old.
10. Can't even perform the simple operations of copy, cut, and paste
11. Doesn't have an eBook reader program
12. No InfraRed--can't beam files, photos, tunes, text, contacts, Applications
13. Doesn't have Bluetooth 2.0
14. Can't use wireless Bluetooth headphones
15. Won't work with optical eyewear players
16. Doesn't have 802.11 g/e Wi-Fi
17. Doesn't have universal mini-USB connector for syncing and charging
18. Doesn't have real downloadable programs, only Web Apps that force you to go online to use. What if you don't want the expense of going online or there is no connection? Apple boasts 600 Web Apps. Windows Mobile has 12,000+ actual programs.
19. You can't transfer files between devices or even to a MAC with an iPhone, and there's no peer to peer connectivity possible either.
20. There's no removable battery. You have to send the unit to Apple at your own expense and suffer downtime. Wow.
21. There are no peripherals for the iPhone such as a Bluetooth keyboard, mouse, headphones, GPS, printer, scanner, hard drives, storage cards, video eyewear, or projectors.
22. There are no voice commands for viewing photos, videos, files, listening to tunes, or running Applications. I really enjoy bossing my pocket concierge around with voice commands. You can't talk to iPhones; you have to poke them in the tummy with your finger to get them to do anything.
23. You can't watch and control your home TV DVR remotely from anywhere in the world
24. No FM or satellite radio
25. You can't use an iPhone as an extension of your desktop monitor and move the mouse between them.
Conclusion
When you want to do serious handheld computing, you need a machine that means business and serves for more than poking fun at with your nose picker. I appreciated my tour as a stranger in the strange land of the iPhone, and thanks for the finger frolics, but I'll stick with my far more powerful Windows Mobile device.
Keep connected
A Stranger in a Strange Land - 25 Reasons the iPhone is Inferior to Windows Mobile
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