Archive for May, 2009

With WWDC ‘09 around the corner, hype around the Nokia N97 and Palm Pre is really diminishing compared to…the iPhone. I’ve been on record saying that the iPhone lacks major features that other smartphones have had for quite some time….here, and here.

I write this completely utterly useless post here to say that my stance is…slowly changing *shock horror*. I’ve been trying to convince myself that maybe buying an iPhone wouldn’t be that bad. With 3.0 around the corner, and possibly new hardware, it may very well be a decent buy to replace my N95. Frankly, I’m a tad fed up with trying to perform time-criticalish tasks (like finding a route with GPS) because of slow software or convoluted user interfaces. I’ve always thought that features significantly outweigh ease of use, and to some point, I still sort of do, but 3.0 is starting to get there.

I’ve gone back to my list of “things the iPhone doesn’t have” and tried to weed out things that either a) I’d probably never use, b) Can be sorta done with jailbreaking c) Are now in 3.0 and d) Has an App Store or Hardware add-on alternative…and we have this:

1. Flash! There’s been talk about this since 2007! Promises that it’d be here “very soon” in 2008. The saga still continues for 2009. Flash in Safari is practically a must have.
2. Background applications – There was a very recent rumour that Apple was actually thinking about allowing background applications, with some limitations. A limitation of two simultaneous applications and/or the application must be tested against Apple’s defined resource usage criteria. Backgrounder, for jailbroken iPhones can do this…although I’m sceptical how well it works. I’d love to borrow an iPhone/iPod Touch for a few days to test this out.
3. A decent camera. 3MP+ We might be in luck here for the next revision of hardware.
4. USB Storage Area. Unfortunately, we’ll never see this. Using your iPhone as a USB storage device isn’t really going to be an option, even with jailbreaking it. Fortunately, you can store and send files with Bluetooth OBEX if you have jailbroken it. I guess it’s not that big of a deal, who wants to carry around that silly proprietary dock connector anyway?!

So, OK. But what will we likely see at WWDC? I don’t know, but these things have been thrown out there to be reasonably credible:

• New iPhone hardware – 3.2MP, 32GB Flash. 256MB RAM, 600MHz CPU
• 3.0 Final
• Snow Leopard updates?

I’m hoping for more (on the software side of things). There has been some features that have been found by digging around in the 3.0 betas, but not been announced. This includes: Video recording, Voice Dialling and a Compass. I have a feeling we won’t see these at WWDC, though. Some think there’s some sort of tablet or iPhone Nano coming, but I highly doubt it.

If I see an updated camera and background applications, I think the next-gen iPhone is the way to go. Flash will come eventually, I guess it’s just a waiting game. No doubt I’ll be buying the FM Tuner, if the new generation doesn’t have one, and replacing my Zune with it.