Saturday, 26 July 2008

iPhone 3G Annoyances When Switching From Windows Mobile

I just switched to the iPhone 3G, and to be honest, I love the phone. But...there are a number of things I'm discovering that really annoy the crap out of me.

So, without ado, here are my iPhone 3G problems/annoyances:


  • Calling Cards: The only way to use a calling card, is to put the number in the actual contact, or type the number in manually. This wouldn't be so bad if a third party could write a little app to enable this functionality. But no, Apple has blocked the ability for 3rd party apps and web sites to put pauses in phone numbers, making this impossible. And, for this record, this change was deliberate, becuase it used to work in 1.1.3 or 1.1.2 and was subsequently removed. UPDATE: There are now a few calling card solutions: http://homepage.mac.com/aamann/CallingCard.html and http://www.truphone.com so this is no longer an issue.
  • Can't delete email without network connection: Exchange integration doesn't allow moving or deleting messages when it doesn't have a network connection. So when I'm in the subway on the way home, all I can do is read messages, but can't process them.
  • Can't create meeting requests: Inexplicably, the iPhone 3G doesn't allow you to create meeting requests with other people, even though it has all the other meeting request features.
  • Mark as Unread is a pain: Mark as unread can only be set on a message if the detail view is shown, which means you have to scroll past all the email addresses. This wouldn't be so bad if it didn't open the next email automatically when you delete an email.
  • Battery too weak: As everyone has said, the battery only lasts a day. Though to be fair, it's always lasted a day for me. The battery alert comes on at 20% and there's actually a fair bit of juice that comes with it. UPDATE: This has been adressed, and now I get much better battery performance than I did on my HTC S620.
  • Viewing upcoming appointments on home screen impossible: Can't view upcoming appointments on your locked home screen. This means I have to unlock and click on Calendar to figure out what's coming up.
  • AVIs require additional software: Putting AVI videos (really anything but Apple's mp4) on the phone requires a third party converter application. It's taken a hell of a lot of work to find one that doesn't crash.
  • Can't unlock: The fact that I can pay for an 18 month contract, and they still won't unlock the phone for me is rediculous. That's never happened to me before. (I know there's jailbreaking and all that razzmatazz.
  • No forwarding of SMSs: Not an issue at all, unless your phone doesn't support copy and paste. :(
  • No copy and paste. 'Nuff said
I'll add or delete from this list as and when things change.

Some other people are seeing different problems. Maybe yours will match. And another viewpoint.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

As you saw from my blog here I quite agree with you.

So so so many things done right. And then so many things that have been done right for so long, even by M$ - done completely wrong or needlessly restricted.

Why?

Anonymous said...

Some other annoyances are here
http://iphoneannoyance.blogspot.com