Why the iPhone Sucks

Posted by Miles Evans

So I saw the keynote, the videos, the renderings, the fanboy rants, the Engadget traffic slurp, the digg gush, the Dvorak whining, and all the assorted iPhone blather. I mean it was unavoidable. Easily the most successful and least expensive viral marketing bulldozer since panty hose. Amazing!

That’s where my fascination with this self proclaimed breakthrough product ends and just plain common sense takes over...

Warning to Mac cultists/fanboys: The following list contains spoilers concerning the iPhone that you may have mentally blocked out and/or already dismissed as fiction. Epileptic style seizures may ensue:

10 reason why the iPhone sucks

1. MP3 Player? Hey cmon you got us with iPods for the last 7 years. I got 3 of them.
2. OMFG no 3G? Wifi is great for modern American cities but out here in Asia free and ample wifi coverage simply doesn’t exist. The same holds true for many more countries. This is really a deal breaker for me.
3. GPS. Works slick on my Samsung Blackjack or any other Windows Mobile phone. Not that I ever use it. As in never.
4. Email, IM, IRC, Skype etc - See above. Really what does this phone do that a Treo running Windows cannot?
5. 5 Hour battery life under heavy use. no really, that’s 5, like the 5 in $500 you will be blowing on your iPhone.
6. No removable battery. So on top of weak battery life we cannot bring along a spare battery. Don’t tell me for a second a touchscreen and all this gooey gadgetry is not a battery drainer either.
7. Useless 2 Megapixel camera. Why bother including it? Especially considering competing models are offering amazing 5 megapixel variations like the Nokie N95. My wife’s Nokie N71 even functions as a video phone and sports a 3.2 megapixel camera with flash. And hey let’s face it Nokia really does blow.
8. No expansion slots. As in none. This means no flash memory. What you buy is what you get, meaning a new model with slightly more size and an extra feature will likely appear each year for you to buy. Also 8GB is the storage capacity which i will admit is pretty reasonable. Oh wait did I mention its $599 for the 8GB model?
9. Touchscreen. Okay who didn’t see this coming? Is this what we are supposed to be gushing over? Alright I will admit this is somewhat cool but I quickly get the feeling this is the killer feature. Honestly it looks like something that would be expensive to replace and easily damaged as well. Most of the negatives around the screen also revolve around the fact it looks as though one handed operation will be limited to those with gorilla size mitts. But yeah I guess the juries out on the touchscreen so I will stop there.
10. OS X. Alright so this is what this is all about! The iPhone as a new Mac platform. Right? Everyone’s favorite BSD based OS on a slim and trendy portable device. Well except it isn’t free or open source like BSD. Or altogether easy to dev apps for. Or not even altogether that friendly to developers at all.

Alright the above might be a bit harsh and certainly a bit ranty but I for one am getting indigestion from all the Apple is the future of innovation blather. I think Apple is a great company with an amazing history. I have most of their products. So let me rescind for a moment and admit that the iPhone is one helluva sexy looking product with definite mass market appeal. I definitely get it. The problem for me is that the hype has reached a really dubious state. Apple has done much less for computing than they and others take credit for and all the gushing and heavy petting is almost evidence of that in my eyes.

Sure sure the iPod was a great product but there was a plethora of reasons why the iPod was so successful, including luck and timing, none of which I see manifesting for the iPhone. Of course it has already been demonstrated that you can sell a Mac user a piece of doodoo in a shiny white box and it will still sell, so I would expect nothing less of this latest 'breakthrough'. So yeah the iPhone will be a killer product that sells a gazillion units. It’s inevitable. But I really think it will achieve this for the same sorts of reasons a movie about Ben Stiller and a CGI dinosaur clean up at the box office.

My prediction! iPhone does the Edsel in Asia. In fact I would bet the farm on this.

Japan already gave the gadget a Yawn.

Apple VPs confirm no 3rd party iPhone apps.

Crave probabely has the best ripping review with Thirteen reasons to doubt the iPhone hype.

Joel does some well deserved ripping on Apple for not allowing a platform for developers.

This is how not to trash the iPhone coutesy of John Dvorak and YouTube.

Posted Jan 14, 2007 at 11:12 PM | Permalink | Trackback URL | Del.icio.us | DIGG!