Despite the recent horror stories surrounding the iPhone -- ranging from hours-long waits in line to spotty service coverage -- I've been fairly happy with it.  In all fairness, the reported coverage and call-dropping issues aren't as big of a factor for me, as I probably spend significantly less time talking on the phone than most people do.  I'm just not that big of a fan of the telephone in general.  I know I sound like some old man who can't bear to give up his carrier pidgeons, but I've always felt self conscious talking on the phone, so I usually try to avoid it whenever I can.  Needless to say I'm a big fan of text messaging.

The one thing I will complain about a little bit is the "App Store."  I really liked the idea that independent software developers could write their own programs and sell them directly to iPhone users, but I really expected that by now we would have a lot more impressive offerings to make my life a little more convenient and productive.  And while there have been some really "neat" programs made available -- like the one that will listen to music and tell you the title and artist, or the Last.fm player which lets you stream music to your iPhone from their online service -- there really haven't been a whole lot of programs made available that aren't just another distraction.  Even once you get past the "interesting but not very useful" applications,you're left with a lot of copycat applications that do exactly the same thing.  For example, here's what you get when you search for "tip":

That's 24 applications that don't do much more than multiply a number by 20%.  Even if you aren't capable of this sort of advanced math on your own, I'm pretty sure that the "Calculator" function that comes with the iPhone has this one covered.   And some of these developers think their specialized calculator is worth $1?  Or in the case of the "International Tip Calculator," $2.  Because moving the decimal over and multiplying by two is completely different in euros than it is in dollars.

I am hopeful that some more innovative programs are on the way, though. Until then, I'm just going to keep playing with this iBeer program.  That was totally worth the $2.

Comments (5)

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written by andy, August 15, 2008

Ouch. Don't be a hater just because you're still rocking the RAZR.

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written by B-House, August 15, 2008

NERD ALERT!

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written by andy, August 15, 2008

Coincidentally enough, I got an email from Jay last night pointing me toward this infinitely useful app that just came out. Simplify Media allows you to stream any music on your desktop computer straight to your iPhone, no matter where you are. This is going to be a huge help for me, since up until now I've had to wrestle with deciding exactly which 16gb of my 120gb of music I want to carry around with me.

The iPhone application is free for the first 100,000 downloaders. Check it out.

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written by andy, August 15, 2008

Well, that's not entirely true. The phone does grab a small text file from Apple on some sort of regualar basis, and Apple apparently can delete your apps remotely; But Apple has acknowledged this and claim -- claim -- that they only have this safeguard in place to remove malicious applications.

Secondly, they can only use this to remove applications you've purchased from their legitimate store through iTunes. I did hack my iPhone so that I can install 3rd-party applications, and I'm fairly certain Apple isn't able to remove those with this process.

Either way, I did find this article a few days ago and played it safe by following their instructions.

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written by Chalupa, August 14, 2008

Did you hear that iPhones "phone home" so that the apps on your phone can be checked to see if they're authorized or not? A guy at work was telling me about this. Apparently if you don't have an authorized app, they can delete it remotely.

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