THINGS I THINK WOULD MAKE THE IPHONE INVINCIBLE
Continuing on with my love-hate relationship with my Apple iPhone 4, I’d like to share with you the changes and additions to the iPhone that I believe would make it a world-dominating device (not that it already isn’t!). As the saying goes, you can’t have your cake and eat it too.
There are many things I wish Apple would do improvement-wise on their top device that would add to my satisfaction. But at the same time, there really isn’t another smart phone on the market that fills in these gaps without taking away other fundamental features at the same time. So for now, I’m stuck with this thing.
But back to the story, here are the things I wish my iPhone had, some pet peeves, and suggested changes that would certainly help Apple continue to rule the roost when it comes to smart phones… and here they are:
1. Text Reflow - this is the biggest annoyance that I have with the iPhone. Zoom in on an article and the sentences fly off the sides of the screen. You have to pan back and forth, many times being forced to wait for the screen to redraw all of the graphics, just to read an article in a large font size. They claim the “Retina Display” is so super fine that you can’t see pixels, so there is no need increase text size. This doesn’t make one hill of beans difference to a person who has poor eyesight. I don’t care if the screen had 1920 by 1280 resolution… what good is it on a 3.5″ display? I can’t read printed ink in the maximum font size that my iPhone allows when you double tap to zoom in on an article without forcing the words off the left or right side of the screen. Android devices have Text Reflow, which basically re-wraps the words down beneath so you never have to pan side-to-side to read an article. For nearly blind people like me, I can zoom in on an article and make the font size so big that it only fits one or two words per line, and all I have to do is scroll straight down to quickly read that article.
This is an easy fix. The developers could have this solved over a cup of coffee. But what is sad is the fact that the techs at Apple don’t even know what Text Reflow IS, much less thinking about adding it to the Safari browser. 99% of iPhone owners that I have spoken to have no clue of what Text Reflow is either. This is probably due to the newness of the feature, and that most Android users are not prior iOS fans.
Text Reflow is the deal-breaker for me and my iPhone. If Apple gave me this one gift, I would overlook each and every other shortcoming with the device. I have waited since the 2nd generation iPhone for reflow, and thus far we haven’t even gotten to the awareness point. If Text Reflow is not incorporated into iOS4 by the time my contract with AT&T is up, I’m switching to Verizon.
2. Flash Support - We aren’t going to beat this dead horse. It is a known fact that Steve Jobs has openly declared war on Adobe, and he’s not going to budge on disallowing Flash for iOS devices. They toyed around with the idea of allowing flash-based apps 2 years ago, but we know how that ended. They have good reason to ban flash. It could allow a work-around for the iTunes store, which is a revenue stream they have to protect.
Their reasoning? They believe the world should stick with the open standard of HTML5. While I agree that we should push for the standardization of the web, it’s going to take a long time (if ever) for Flash to disappear from the web. Until then, I can’t view some of my favorite Flash-based sites from my Apple device like NFL.com, and Quansite.com. This very blog post that I am writing comes from an amazing service (Quansite) that is Flash-based. I want the ability to use this site on my mobile devices. But this is not going to ever become a reality if I stick with Apple. But we’ll just leave this one alone.
3. iPhone 4’s Antenna - I have taped up m iPhone 4 to prevent signal loss from touching the wide band of metal that surrounds the device which serves as an antenna. Yes, I did order my free case from Apple which would solve this problem, but the Speck case that I ordered was broken within 3 weeks (cheap crap). The iPhone 4 is the world’s thinnest smart phone. That’s really cool. But what good is it if you have to put a case or bumper on it to make it work right?
I was shocked at the level of denial by Steve Jobs over the antenna issue. He just flat-out denied that it was happening. I wish Steve would come to my house and sit next to me while I hold this phone in the way that he dictates so he can see that the reception still goes straight out the window no matter what. His denial doesn’t make my reception get any better. What it boils down to is the simple fact that this phone is not a finished usable product as it is right out of the box.
4. SWYPE - This is just a wish that will never get fulfilled. SWYPE is the most amazing innovation to hit smart phones since the first buttonless touch screen. You can enter text at a rate of up to 50 words per minute using SWYPE, and it just seems like a natural way to enter data. I’m fairly impressed at the accuracy of SWYPE on correctly predicting what I am wanting to input into the device. Maybe Apple could come up with something similar, but I see this feature as one that will be swept underneath the rug for a few years by the Apple geniuses.
5. The Glass Sandwich - This great looking phone owes its aesthetic appeal to two glass layers that are prone to breaking. As time goes on, it becomes more and more of an issue. These phones are just too fragile. I’ve already cracked my front digitizer. I’m one of many people who have crunched their displays from drops that are not that violent. Sure, you can buy a big fat Otterbox to protect your fragile investment, but what good is it to have the “world’s thinnest smart phone” device if you have to add an inch of protective rubber all around the phone? Being the thinnest is rendered useless when the phone is so breakable that you can’t operate it or transport it without an ironclad protective suit. I need a manly phone that will continue to work when it is snatched down to concrete when my headphones get snagged on my car’s rear view mirror. One that has the extra Otter Box capability actually built in to the phone. Wouldn’t that be genius?
6. Small Display - Ok so call me old school, but I like a phone that fits my fat face. If it were up to me, I’d have a smart phone that was shaped like the original Bell Telephone handset. Yeah, that big curvy chunky thing that molds to your jaw. It would have a 6″ color display stuck to the outside of the handle too. Remember those bag phones? Well I had one. And I loved it. That’s what a phone should feel like when you put it up to your face, not like these dinky little credit-card size things that you stick in your ear that don’t fit.
It cracks me up hearing people say that phones like the Droid X and Evo 4G are “too big”. Whatever! I say BIGGER IS BETTER. I have bad eyesight. Staring at this tiny 3.5″ screen just makes me mad! Give me a big fat honking 7″ smart phone and I will carry it around in a bag phone style carrying case, and I’ll attach a spiral-corded handset and look like I did back in the day.
All that said, the iPhone 4 is still the king of the hill when it comes to smart phones. I looked on the AT&T site to try to pick another smart phone and just realized that none of them have a front-facing camera. GACK! Now that I have my front-facing camera, which happens to be one of the features I have waited 2 years to see, I can’t go back. I’m going to have to put up with all of these missing wish-list items and shortcomings until someone comes up with a smart phone that is hitting on all 4 cylinders. Who knows… maybe that perfect phone will be the iPhone 4G next year.
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