Duck Fat Fries

More weeks, more apps, more observations.

3 whole weeks have gone by – the honeymoon is over folks! Latest obsevations..

• Touch screen has some trouble in humidity.  Getting into the car on a rainy nasty day, the screen barely responds to my fingers.
• 3G SUCKS in some areas, even with “full signal”. Its a funny thing – you expect broadband speed because the phone says 3G.. yet at times (especially north of Boston) it feels much slower than EDGE.
• When this thing’s memory is chewed up, it does not tell you, does not show you, and has VERY irritating behavior. For instance.. you cannot compose, or reply to an email. You click on stuff and it simply does nothing. At least TELL me there’s a problem, Apple. I don’t mind rebooting (I used a Blackberry for years, remember) – so don’t pretend everything’s fine and simply ignore my requests.  And when apps crash – how about an error message?? I have seen most of my apps crash – some repeatedly – but with no explanation. WTF, Apple? You think my not having a clunky error message, your phone is more user friendly? Tell me what the hell is wrong, so I know how to fix it. Is there “an app for that”?
• Camera – still garbage unless perfectly still, in bright sunlight. Now there’s all this talk of adding cameras to ipods and whatnot – oy. From a photo nerd, this is a sad, sad thing. I am still shocked at the camera’s deficiencies (have to use the touch screen, slow to load, slow to shoot, tendency to warp photos, horrid low-light performance)
• AT&T’s own iPhone app, “myWireless” – you know, the one to access your account and everything you need from your fancy phone? It has not worked for over a week. Simply sits there saying “loading”. Thanks ATT. Nice work. Really.
• App Updates – two things here. When you have several updates from the App Store, you can only run one at a time. So.. you go to App Store, hit Updates, and pick an app to update. Then you exit the App Store so it can load the new app. Then you have to load up the App Store all over again, and repeat. This is assinine. Why isn’t there an “update all”??? Found out there is, but only via iTunes – and if you are trying to use this as a laptop replacement, uh, yeah, fail.
• A word on Safari. Its a great browser, when it stays open. Have experienced several crashes, because all of its “tabs” apparently can consume a pile of memory. Why not have a “close all windows” option for me? Hmm? Cause if I exit to do something else, you keep my last web page in memory – I don’t need that.
• The IM issue. In my last post, I mentioned that I could buy an IM client that used Push notification to kind of be “online”. It occurred to me later that Apple gets a chunk of that money. So I am essentially paying Apple to keep their phones crippled? Oh, HELL no.  So shortly after that, a free chat client has come out, that could potentially give me “live” IM access to Google Talk, via Push notifications. YAY, right? I installed it and came very close to “signing in” when it occurred to me – my precious email login credentials are suddenly about to be stored on some server that I know nothing about. I don’t even know who’s running it, or how secure it is! I am not OK with sharing my personal information with random 3rd parties. Sorry, Apple.
• About that hardware.. It crushes my old Blackberry – I don’t contest that. However.. it is not so “magical”, I am finding. Using anything that tries to ‘autofill’ is mind bogglingly annoying. The thing chews up all of its cycles trying to guess what you are typing, to the degree that it stops accepting input from your typing. Using Google Search is a joke.. takes forever to type your terms, and have the time it falsely submits your query without asking. It is painful. Sending a photo over email – same thing, things get amazingly sluggish as you try to select your recipients.

So.. I have one more week with this thing, before I head back to the ATT store to see about a return. I have some concerns from the “drop” as the shitty plastic backing got a bit chewed up. Could someone tell me why that isnt rubberized still? Oh yeah, it wouldnt be as sexy.

Using this phone very often leaves me as irritated and frustrated as my old run-down Blackberry did. That is not acceptable.