Photograph by: Eliya Selhub
The iPhone is a pretty good looking phone and functional phone by the looks of it and it might actually end up being a hit in the US, if it wasn't for the high price tag. While $500 - $600 seems like a good deal for us Asians and some of us are used to spending that much on a phone it seems to be uncommon in the US. They're still using crappy old cheap models over there :), which generally come for a real cheap price or for free as part of the plan. So I really don't think the iPhone as it is, is going to be anything like an iPod.
But it can be like an iPod, only if Apple did a few things more. Here are a list of things I want on myPhone:
- 3G - Its great this thing has EDGE but I wouldn't dish out so much and not get anything that hasn't got 3G
- User pluggable SIM card - What were they thinking! Oh wait physical security to please AT&T. Do we have to dissect just to change the SIM card? Give us a slot to insert/remove the SIM
- Expandable Memory - 4GB and 8GB are plenty but having a removable, expandable SD slot is a must in any modern phone
- Custom Apps - Steve Jobs sold the fact that developers can't develop native apps as a good thing at the recent WWDC. While its awesome its got a full fledged browser, Steve said him self, "But it’s happening fairly slowly and there’s still a lot you can do with a rich client environment.", that desktop apps are richer and can take back what was lost to the web. If Apple decided on every thing that was to run on the iPhone, its going to be a boring, under utilized device.
- Voice recognition menus/Dialing - The touch pad is great but with such a powerful phone you would have expected some more natural ways of input. I hear the touch pad doesn't work well with gloves which can be a problem under freezing weather.
- Skype - A great use with WiFi around. Oh wait AT&T wont like it.
- IM - SMS chat is ok, if you want to burn money but how on earth can you ignore an IM client. True with Safari, you could use a service like Meebo, but then again you could just use google maps too
- Flash, Java - Are these technologies so yesterday? Can we do it all with Ajax
- TV out - Does this thing have Video out? I hope they didn't drop that. (iPod video has it)
- Record Video - I can't believe this can't record video with the built in 2MB camera.
- A Flash please - A Flash makes a BIG difference when taking photos. At least a fake Flash like some of the older SE phones
- Video conferencing - Now I am getting a bit more demanding here. I'm thinking, with a 2 year plan your looking at being stuck with this till end of 2009 - 2010. I would think most people would find video conferencing a common thing by then.
- Project it - Ok I may be asking for too much here :) But it would be cool and very Business like if I could some how just run a Presentation and project it to a big screen without taking out my notebook
Well thats my rant on the iPhone's missing features. I am sure there are more and the best way around this is to just make it easy for third party apps, even if Apple has to first examine and digitally sign them. If it can do half as much as what I mentioned then there is a good chance the iPhone will be a hit in Asia if & when it is released.
In the mine time, I am holding my breath for a truly Open Phone, the Open Moko and the great apps the FOSS community will build to run on it.