Internet Explorer Mobile Update Will Require New Devices

The tried and true business model of screwing your existing customers should finally be going out of fashion as the economy works hard to catch up (down) with our Chinese competitors. Somehow "High Tech" has been able to get away for years with releasing underspec'd garbage that they "fix" 6-12 months later with another identical device that just happens to be better designed.

Witness the $600.00 Treo 650 released with buggy NVFS capable of holding about 60% of the $600.00 Treo 600 it was supposed to replace. To paraphrase a quote attributed to Dirkson: "A half thousand here, a half thousand there, and pretty soon you're talking real money." You can churn your customers for a while and get those short-term sales... BUT- the long term market share and customer loyalty during tricky economic times will belong to the companies that design their products to be reliable and robust, and support them well. Ask anyone who owns a SONY laptop to talk with a Thinkpad owner and see if the "prettier" one makes them happier than the one with good design and support and reliability. Even in tough economic times people will buy things - but they'll take more time to evaluate and will more often go for the product that has a long and proven track record of support AFTER the sale. Good luck with the churn, Microsoft - one more reason to consider a Blackberry.

Paying my annual PDA update tax to Palm since 1997.

I'm still on my Verizon 755p + Verizon V9m dumbphone combo (for the time being).

Pilot 1000->Pilot 5000->PalmPilot Pro->IIIe->Vx->m505->T|T->T|T2->T|C->T|T3->T|T5->Zodiac 2->TX->Verizon Treo 700P->Verizon Treo 755p

The Motorola is a small, sleek, thin dumbphone with a decent camera, good build quality, rock-solid BT and voice quality and reception.

The two devices compliment each other nicely but even I am getting tired of fumbling/synching/charging two devices. And I am frequently misplacing one or the other and run around the house or the office calling one of the phones trying to find it. So I have vowed in 2009 to give convergence another shot but PIM functionality as well as voice quality/reception will be THE determining factors this time around.

I will not be dazzled by fluff or whatever is the hipster favorite du jour.

If it's some kind of miraculously rejuvenated Garnet device in Q1, then fine. If it's a Nova device that finally brings Garnet up to par with other modern OSes, then that's even better. If it's RIM, then I'll only be the Storm and I'll try to familiarize myself ASAP. If it's WinCE Mob then I'll insist on a hotrod handset with a big high-res screen and at least I'll have Graffiti 1 back. One thing's for certain-it won't be an iPhone!

Pilot 1000->Pilot 5000->PalmPilot Pro->IIIe->Vx->m505->T|T->T|T2->T|C->T|T3->T|T5->Zodiac 2->TX->Verizon Treo 700P->Verizon Treo 755p

http://gizmodo.com/5086832/iphone-shoulder-holster-is-chuck-norris-favorite-fashion-accessory

I can just imagine the reaction of TSA if ya tried to wear THAT through airport security.

Gack!

If you don't like the virtual keyboard, that's a reasonable complaint, but what is lacking in the PIM software? Also, how do you figure it's a mediocre phone? Contacts has a bar on the right that you can drag to the desired starting letter. So if you want to find George, you tap the G on the right-hand side. There's also a search field at the top of contacts.

Also speaking of PIM apps, IIRC there was no way of syncing notes/memos with your desktop in the original iPhone/Touch. Has this changed with the newer versions or is there a good third-party application that allows you to do this?

Screw convergence
Palm III->Visor Deluxe->Visor Platinum->Visor Prism->Tungsten E->Palm LifeDrive->Palm TX
Visor Pro+VisorPhone->Treo 180g->Treo 270->Treo 600->Treo 680
http://mind-grapes.blogspot.com/

Also speaking of PIM apps, IIRC there was no way of syncing notes/memos with your desktop in the original iPhone/Touch. Has this changed with the newer versions or is there a good third-party application that allows you to do this?

I think there are a few backdoor methods of syncing the standalone Notes application with your desktop, but I know for a fact there are several third-party applications that can do this, and most are free. Evernote has you create an account on their website, which syncs your iPhone to your desktop, and vice-versa.

It's too thin - hard to comfortably hold in a normal hand for very long.

You're the first person in the history of mankind to ever complain that a phone was "too thin".

The battery life sucks, and your *only* option is to tether the phone when it dies.

Battery life was abysmal on the original 2.0 software for the iPhone 3G. Same thing with 3G reception. Firmware 2.1 completely fixed both issues for me. And believe me, this was no placebo update. I've had MAYBE one dropped call since the 2.1 update, whereas I was experiencing two or three daily under 2.0. It was so bad under 3G that I had it switched off the majority of the time, and I was ready to take back the phone. 2.1 was really that fantastic. Since then, reception has been superb, and I battery life easily gets me through the day. Everybody I know routinely complains about their phone dying during the day, whereas my iPhone 3G is going strong.

Safari routinely crashes or freezes, you are limited to under 150 applications TOTAL...

Safari crashes on me about 5% of the times that I use it. It's a small number, but it's still too high. However, usually I can just open Safari back up and it'll load up the page I was browsing, so it's not a complete crash-and-burn. But it is definitely something they need to address. As for the other things, 150 applications is a huge amount. But I'm sure if there are enough complaints in the future, they can extend that number. I've got 48 third-party apps, and I feel like that's pushing it.

Here's my take...

A good majority of the things that are lacking on the iPhone are things that have been virtually solved by third-party updates. But I have my own list of missing features on the iPhone:

1) Good document editing software
I need good Office support, and not just mild editing. Textmaker on Windows Mobile was very good, and I'm expecting very much the same here.
Solution - Dataviz is hard at work on this, and it seems like they're betting the bank on it.

2) Bluetooth support
Right now, Bluetooth support is, well, shit. It can pair to your headset for calling, but you can't voice dial with it. You can't even listen to music via A2DP. You can't transfer files or sync with other iPhones over Bluetooth (fat chance of this happening with all of the DRM BS, even though this could so easily be implemented in the software), and you can't sync your iPhone to iTunes over Bluetooth or even Wifi. Finally, a lot of people resist switching to the iPhone because they don't want to use the virtual keyboard for heavy email use, so give me some Bluetooth keyboards and peripherals.
Solution - The Apple iPhone SDK prohibits Bluetooth peripheral devices. Change that immediately.

3) Cut and Paste
Stupid. Should be up and running right now, but Apple probably has it on hold because they can't figure out a way to make it work without having three fingers on the screen at once.
Solution - Somebody already dreamed it up. Put it in NOW.
http://vimeo.com/266383

4) MMS
Look Apple, I understand you want everyone to use "rich email", but until you get the rest of the world to use an iPhone (you're doing pretty well, by the way), I need MMS. It's annoying getting that stupid text message that says, "You have received a multimedia message..." Oh, and thanks to no copy/paste function, I have to memorize the username and password combination to use the shitty viewmymessage.com service. By the time I get it right, and God forbid the server doesn't hang for ten minutes, I'm greeted with a flash page, which brings me to my next point...
Solution - Simple. Implement it, Steve.

5) No Flash
Thank God there is a separate YouTube application, because although the iPhone has a phenomenal web browsing experience, the lack of Flash kills it.
Solution - It sounds like Apple is scared of a mobile device with limited resources having to wade through Flash ads and crap content. However, give the user the option to disable it, or have it only usable on Wifi. Something. Anything.

6) Turn-by-turn direction
Even though one of the two major additions of the iPhone 3G was built-in GPS, it has absolutely abysmal turn-by-turn support. In Google Maps, you have to manually tap the steps forward or backwards in order to navigate the route, and you have to press a separate button to have it follow the blue dot that indicates your current position.
Solution - TomTom has turn-by-turn GPS software ready to roll for the iPhone 3G, and it's been like this for five months now. Give them the OK to start selling it and it'll KILL.

I'm sure I'll think of more later, but this is my short list of things that need pretty immediate addressing.

Now that I've got this typed up, I can get a little how-to done for Gekko on converting from a Treo to an iPhone. But I have a feeling that even if I don't get it done, he'll end up switching to the platform anyway by 2009.

-Bosco
NX80v + Wifi + BT + S710a

That does open up the possibility that we may see it available in updated ROMs for existing devices, however. And I wouldn't be surprised to see it on XDA-Developers within a week or two.

i'll take FrankenGarnet over ZombieOS.