It’s that time of year again. Time to rant about the most non-functional fashion-phone available on the market. The iPhone. See my original iPhone review Here. Technically this isn’t my 3rd rant; however, the first preview of the iPhone OS 3.0 has been released and I have to point out the flaws to all of the fanboys that are going to go on about it for 6 months after it’s been released.

Apple announced some fairly minor changes in iPhone OS 3.0 and there really isn’t much to talk about. They did respond to the community a bit, but the phone is still flawed significantly.

The Bad:

One of the new APIs that was released was In-App Purchase. Sorry Apple, I do not wish to buy my application multiple times. When I buy an app I expect to have the whole damn thing. I can see how this would work for subscriptions and such, but some of the demos included Games asking if you’d like to purchase a new weapon. Seriously?

Rocket Launcher, $0.99

ONE Rocket Launcher, $0.99? Please, fuck off.

The Good:

Finally! Cut, Copy AND Paste. That’s right, the user-interface paradigm for transferring text, which has dated back to 1974, has finally made it into your iPhone. Congrats. Frankly, I always thought the reason of “OH, We can’t think of a good gesture to do this” was bull. Even I could of thought up the gesture they ended up using. There’s also undo and redo for copy and paste; cool, I suppose. EDIT: Apparently the reason was “Security” which I also find to be a pretty bullshit excuse.

Turn-by-turn navigation and “BYO Maps” (a.k.a. Offline Maps)! Developers are now able to use the API to create their own Navigation applications so anything is possible. Apple can’t license Google Maps for turn-by-turn navigation, unfortunately, but now you can go overseas AND use GPS without getting charged excessive roaming data charges from your provider.

Better basic phone features. These features are things that should have been there to begin with but were clearly overlooked. Better landscape support in most Apple applications, Forwarding/Deleting multiple messages, MMS (but not iPhone 1.0), Voice Recording/Notes, Subscription Calendars with ICS.

Searching. Apple introduced a mini version of Spotlight in each of their applications as well as a Universal Search that searches most of “things” you have on your phone. Of course, other cooler phones like the N95 already have this. Not something I would have expected to see or care about, but cool none the less.

The Mediocre:

Push notifications. The architecture that was promised over a year ago is now here! The reason for not using background applications is, you guessed it, battery life. I can see how push notifications could be good for such things as News, Sports Results and Stocks, but I will never see this working for IM applications. A combination of background applications and push notifications would be a GOOD thing. a) IM applications can work natively at all times, b) Developers wouldn’t have to work on some crazy proxying technique to take IM messages from MSN/AIM/etc. to the Apple Notification Server and c) You wouldn’t lose the state and connection in an application when switching between apps (Safari to IM, for instance). Apple also mentions they will make NO uptime guarantees, sigh.

There were several other small features that were added which really weren’t significant to talk about (Shake to Shuffle, really?). This nice image from Engadget sums it up pretty well:

Minor 3.0 Features

Alas, the phone is still flawed. Kudos to Apple to partially listening, but with just about every product and update they release, they constantly leave out features that are in high demand. For example, the iPod. The thing still lacks an inbuilt FM Tuner and support for other popular media formats even though the features are available in competitor’s products. This irritates the crap out of me.

So, here’s the “wish” list, even longer than before and in no particular order (off the top of my head):

  1. Front facing Camera – for Video Calls (hello? it IS an iPhone 3G) or iChat, perhaps?
  2. Video Recording – Because Qik is fun.
  3. Decent Camera – decent lens, 5MP+, flash.
  4. File storage area – for documents, media, etc., accessible via USB, sendable via Bluetooth OBEX.
  5. Removable Battery – it just doesn’t last long enough.
  6. Tactile keyboard – I suppose touch keyboards can be fun while drunk.
  7. Background applications – See above.
  8. Wireless Sync – Even my Zune does this *rolls eyes*
  9. Document Management – i.e. a mini version of iWork/iLife that opens Adobe, Apple and Microsoft documents. QuickOffice on Symbian phones does this well.
  10. Voice Dialling – Just about every phone has this.
  11. Text to Speech Caller ID – With the enhancements to text to speech in Leopard, you’d think they’d fit this in. What about that new in-game voice feature!?
  12. Flash in browser – There was talk about this by Adobe and Apple not too long ago. Officially “there’s no announcement on this yet”, which I suppose means it’s probably in the works.
  13. Inbuilt FM Radio – Just about everyone fights me on this, but I still want it without the silly dongle attachment thingie.
  14. Favourite/Recent Contacts – Yet another basic phone feature.
  15. Modem Tethering – Apparently, this is “being built in” and they are “working with providers”. Apparently it’s coming in 3.0, but still being developed… but so was Push Notifications. Maybe 4.0?
  16. Blocking Calls/Messages from Contacts – Sometimes I don’t want to talk to specific retards; another basic phone feature.
  17. Ringtones – Sure, we all hate annoying, horrible sounding songs as ringtones, but I’d refuse to pay money to put a clip of a song as my damn ringtone. I want to use anything I damn want, unrestricted.
  18. Bluetooth HID – External keyboards are much win when you have one and you don’t want to carry a notebook. I have one with the N95; works brilliantly.

So when does this 3.0 come? Winter ‘09 (for the southern hemisphere). The beta is out for developers now, so I expect the leak soon. Just like 2.0, this is a paid upgrade (US$9.95) for the iPod Touch and free for the iPhone. Also, there was mention of Bluetooth being “unlockable” on the iPod Touch 2.0 (it has that Nike chip thingo).

What phone am I looking at these days? The Palm Pre, maybe. The Nokia N97, maybe. Their lack of multi-touch slightly annoys me, but we’ll have to see when they’re actually released. So in conclusion… What can iPhone 3.0 do over my N95? Lets see, that multi-touch touchscreen thing? Wait that was 1.0. Um… Nothing. Sorry Apple. It’s certainly a move in the right direction but your phone STILL only has the cool UI and slightly better ease of use as an advantage when comparing features to a 2 year old smartphone.

Grant would also like to add that liking Apple products or being an Apple fanboy does not automatically make you computer literate or worthy of a “geek” title (that may make you look better in any way, shape or form). Please, go back to your hole.