i think the iphone is single handedly making me dislike apple all over again.
i think this stems from my not understanding the ipod craze. while i have an ipod nano, it hasn’t been used in at least 6 months.
according to steve jobs when he unveiled the iphone at macworld 2007 this past january, its, “…three things: a widescreen iPod with touch controls; a revolutionary mobile phone; and a breakthrough Internet communications device…”
since the “internet device” part of the iphone is thus far a joke, with severely crippled email functionality, no over the air syncing (of anything), and a “desktop web experience” thats less capable than the browser in modern s60 phones, i think its more or less just another web enabled phone, albeit prettier than most. it is however a far cry from being a “breakthrough internet communications device”
onto the revolutionary mobile phone part. this one truly baffles me and i still have a hard time getting my head around the claim that a device without a todo list, or notes that sync back to a computer, or basic suport for mms or video recording, or more than 3-way conference calling (my n73 supports 6-way) or adjustable camera settings, or third party software is in anyway a “revolutionary mobile phone.” Perhaps they should have said “revolutionary new user interface, mediocre functionality”
the only real claim that apple got right is that it is a widescreen video ipod with touch controls. granted, at only a 1.5:1 screen ratio its closer to the old 4:3 ratio of broadcast tv of yore and its really not all that widescreen. as an example, even 16:9 content (which would be 1.78:1) will still be presented letterboxed with black bars above and below the picture, lets not talk about how bad a 2.35:1 motion picture will look if its not been cropped.
so it seems that the iphone is really just the merging of an ipod and a cellphone, and sadly its not even a really good phone, again lacking a lot of the functionality of modern smartphones.
that having been said, i was very disappointed when apple announced that their next operating system update (10.5 aka leopard) was delayed until october 2007 (pushed back from the initial spring 2007 schedule) so as to divert resources to “finish” the iphone on time.
but clearly the iphone isn’t finished by any stretch of the imagination, so i must wonder how often in the future apple is going to divert resources from their computer divisions in order to update their new “jesusphone” as the web has started to term it.
from here, all i can say is that i hope adobe updates lightroom, and does it fast, so that i can use it in place of aperture in case i ever decide to move back to a windows based machine. at the rate apple is going, with their lack of innovation in their computer hardware (their newest 15.4″ laptop is still only 1440×900 pixels, while 15″ laptops with wuxga [1920x1200 pixels, fully capable of playing 1080p hd content] screens have been available since 2003 from companies like Dell and Compaq) and the constant delays in their operating system updates (not to mention the lack of a new version of ilife multimedia software or iwork office software for 18 months) and the fact that i can clearly see beyond the steve jobs “reality distortion field” and i don’t know how much longer i’ll be an apple user.
