Recently, I've been considering a new phone. I know my current iPhone 3GS is only 7 months old, but Apple's beginning to become hindrance to the phone's "usability", and an internet capable phone that doesn't do everything you want it to do is just, well, a phone. I've started questioning, "Why spend so much money on something that's 'just a phone'?"
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Complaint number 1 against the iPhone: Adobe Flash
I'm tired of going to websites and getting this where there's supposed to be a video.
I know flash is a pretty power hungry software, I know it uses a lot of resources, but, you know what, I don't care, sometimes I want to watch an embedded video. Steve Jobs is telling iPhone/iPod/iPad users to just hold their horses and wait for HTML5 to become mainstream, just how long are we going to have to wait for this though? Right now, there are only a handful of sites that offer HTML5 video, Youtube is doing a sort of beta run on it, but I've tried it on my desktop, and Flash is still much more functional. The other sites where HTML5 is widely used are sites that I've never, or very rarely, visited and, too be honest, have very little reason to visit in the future. It may be the "web tech of the future", but after spending mucho dinero on a phone now, I don't want to have to wait until that phone is obsolete to get, what I consider, full functionality. On the other hand, smart phones loaded with Android (as well as future tablets) support Adobe Flash AND HTML5, making them ready, right out of the box, for today's internet and tomorrows. Again, I appreciate innovation and promoting innovation, but crippling your product for whatever reason is just bad business.
Complaint number 2 against the iPhone: Apps
Because of Apple's "problems" with Adobe and Google, there are several apps that aren't available, or, at best, have less desirable replacements. With their latest OS SDK updates, apps that were made with Adobe's Flash-to-iPhone compiler available in the Flash Professional CS5 software have been banned and all future apps can only be made using "Documented APIs in the manner prescribed by Apple and must not use or call any private APIs." Again, this goes back to the whole Apple vs. Adobe thing, but it's hurting customer's by making a fairly expensive product less than fully functional. I have a lot of apps that I really enjoy on my iPhone that were made with Adobe's Flash-to-iPhone compiler, if I did not have those, I wouldn't enjoy my phone nearly as much as I do now. Apple's problems with Google have really disappointed me, in all aspects. There are several apps available on smart phones running Android that I would absolutely love to have on my iPhone ... one such example is Google Map Navigation, a FREE GPS navigation app that gets far better reviews from Consumer Reports, Gizmodo, and PCMag.com, than I would give the paid and free GPS apps I've used for the iPhone. NOTE: I'm not paying $$$ for a phone app that's available free on other phone platforms, so I haven't tried the more expensive apps, nor have I tried the country/region specific apps ... e.g. TomTom or CoPilot Live.
UPDATE: Just read that Google is planning on releasing it's GPS app for the iPhone. No set date, yet, but it's in the works. Read more here if you're interested.
Complaint number 3 against the iPhone: Multi-Tasking & other Software Locked Functions
This one could soon be fixed with iPhone OS 4.0, but it's been missing on all previous versions of the OS. Why has it taken 3+ years to implement something Android implemented right from the start (I looked for something to disprove this, couldn't find it, if you can, please comment on it and I'll note it in the article ... a the very least, it was implemented by the Android 2.0 update)? Again, this is a case of a product crippled by the manufacturer. I know there are disadvantages to multi-tasking, most notably a shorter battery life, but there are times when I'd like to listen to AOL Radio while typing out a quick text message, or talk to my parents on Skype while checking the weather. As it is now, I have to sit in front of another computer to do any multi-tasking, and that's not always an option I have and that can slow things down.
Another function that was built-in to the iPhone's hardware, but wasn't made functional until an OS update, is stereo Bluetooth. iPhones were built with hardware that supported stereo Bluetooth, however, Apple crippled this function on the iPhone (and iPod Touches from the same generation) until they released iPhone OS 3.0. How long did loyal Apple users have to wait to get this update? Well, not long, if you're a Galápagos Tortoise (avg. lifespan of over 100 years), just a mere 2 years. If you were an iPhone owner, you were lucky and got this built-in function for free; if you were an iPod Touch owner, you had to pay $9.99 to be able to upgrade to OS 3.0 and use hardware that was built-in to the device. Considering A2DP, the protocol that makes stereo Bluetooth possible, was developed and released long before the iPhone was released to the public and the hardware was built into it, there is no reason that this should not have been an out-of-box function.
Complaint number 4 against the iPhone: Locked Service Providers
For US customers, the iPhone is locked to the AT&T network (or, in the future, Verizon) and in China, it's locked to Unicom (not sure about other areas as I haven't been there). From what I've read, both networks are great and I can say from first hand experience that AT&T is nearly non-existent where I live in the US and Unicom only works, well, in some parts of the city I live in China. Android, on the other hand, is available on so many different phones that it could be used on virtually every available network. I understand this is a 1 phone versus many scenario, but, if it were you, and you saw a competitor as big as Google making it's smart phone OS available nearly everywhere, you'd probably be screaming at every provider in the market to pick up your phone, or just completely unlocking it and making it a phone that could be used on nearly any network (limited by hardware only). Apple, staying true to form, not only doesn't do this, they also (basically) renew their nearly exclusive contract with AT&T for the iPad 3G. What this means is, if you buy an iPhone in the US, you will either have to pay AT&T/Verizon's roaming fees or jailbreak your phone to use it internationally or even in areas where AT&T has poor coverage.
Verizon's broadband network is much better, according to their map, and this is a step in the right direction.
I really like my iPhone, but all of these roadblocks put up by the phone's manufacturer are really starting to turn me off to continued loyalty. I like the focus placed on the future and continued innovation, but when supporting current technologies isn't the focus of a device's manufacturer, it really makes something with a "smart" label seem kind of dumb to own.
