After nine years of snowboarding, I’m back to my roots. Skiing still feels awesome!
Nassfeld - Beautiful day! But it also brought some minor injurances with it.
Disclaimer:
I’m among those who got their iPhone 3g immediately when it was released, being July 11th 2008 – Which means there is no one out there who had this thing in his hands for a longer period of time than I did (except for some Apple employees of course). I’m just mentioning this to make clear that my decision is solid, well reasoned and not offhanded. I’ll mainly focus on the problems the phone (or Apple?) brought with it, since they finally drove me to get rid of this overhyped device. Hence, I’m not contrasting pros with cons. Read on.
Apples Appstore Madness:
I’ll start with the most important reason which should address every iPhone owner out there.
As you may know, Apple runs a big online store where you can download all the applications for your phone. Some of them are for free, some of them cost a few bucks – this is up to the author of every single application. (Even though I’m only dowloading free apps, Apple still wants my credit card information. /!\Insert big WTF! here/!\ I receive a bill every week with Apple Inc. charging me 0,- €.)
But, to get down to the nitty gritty – what disturbs me most is the constrictive way of thinking of this constrictive company. Apple decides whether an application makes it into the store or not. For example, Opera Software recently developed a better browser for the iPhone, called OperaMini for iPhone. Guess what? Apple decided not to put it into their appstore because the Opera browser could be better than the native Safari browser on the iPhone. Just how totally stupid, egregious and unacceptable is that? Thanks Apple, for deciding what’s best for me and what’s not. Oh sorry I forgot, you just decide what’s best for you, right? If you are a german reader, I highly recommend to have a look at this article.
Is Apple remotely controlling MY cellphone?
I’ll continue with the appstore problem a little bit. Things are even worse. If Apple decides to remove (for whatever reason) any application from its appstore, the application gets de-activated the next time you connect your iPhone to your computer.
Let’s say there is an application which is very important for you and your job- like a voice recorder. You wake up early in the morning, finding out that your iPhone needs to be charged before driving to work. You sync your phone in order to charge it, and there it goes: Voice recorder has been removed from the Apple appstore, therefore it got de-activated on your phone. Again, this is totally unacceptable. My cellphone is MY property, and I want to be the only person in the world who decides what’s on it and what’s not. Foreign companies have no right to control the contents of my personal device without letting me know. Period!
The Iphone 3G Smartphone is not a smartphone:
There are plenty of things the iPhone can’t do. Apart from the missing video capture, the iPhone is not able to forward text(sms) messages. Well maybe that’s possible, but I didn’t manage to find out how during the past months (and this is of course not my fault, since Apple products are super easy to use, so that even my grandma would find that out, am I right?). Forwarding text means you have to memorize the content, and re-type the message so you cand send it to someone else. Awesome!
Also, the phone misses a file manager. For example it is not possible to copy a pdf file to your phone and view it (same goes for .doc, .xls, .txt….etc.). Even though the iPhone does have a pdf reader on board, this one remains solely for safari-based pdf reading. Once again: Unacceptable, stupid, restrictive – Apple! This is a multi hundred €uro device, and I can’t view a .txt file? Oh come on! The only files you can put on your iPhone in order to view them are the ones which go via iTunes…so go figure. Did I mention that Apple decided that the phone can only view .mov and .mpeg4 video files? Which means you will have to convert nearly every video before synching it to the device? Maybe someone should drop a letter to Jobs and tell him that there are a few other video codecs out there which are better and more widely spread.
It crashes. Often.
Do I need to explain that any further? I thought Apple products never crash? (Hint: If you are dating somebody, be sure to have a second cellphone in your pocket, just in case your apple gets addle.)
Conclusions:
Don’t get me wrong here. The Apple iPhone 3G is a shiny, neat and well made toy. I see why there is a hype, but I also see that on the long run – the phone just doesn’t do justice to it.
But the iPhone itself is not the only problem. I’d say the bigger one is Apple:
During the past months, I think I’ve become to understand this company a little better. Apple creates its own unique world, which feels great! Everythink works smoothly, feels uncomplicated and solid. But NEVER EVER dare to cross their borders. If you do so, you will suffer nothing but frustration! Be it a .txt file or a different browser – you’ll be disappointed.
As for me, I am not the person who likes to lock hisself into a restricted world, even though it feels shiny inside. You have to be the kind of user Apple wants you to be. Else, SELL!
Update: If you are looking for a solution to the text and pdf problem, here is a piece of software which should help you out. Price is ~20 Dollars, I think it’s worth it.
Yay. After nearly half a year, I finally managed to put tsbu back online. With it comes a fresh design, a new code engine and some new content.
Wordpress now keeps me from hand rolling this blog, it’s the most convenient and professional way you will ever come across – please do yourself a favour and try this amazing piece of software! Stop reinventing the wheel by coding blogs on your own!
I’ve made some of the pages bi-lingual in order to give my German visitors (customers) a better understanding of what I do. The main language remains English of course.
So, I basically merged my blog and my professional site, now being a semi professional site. Cool?
The design is very bandwidth intensive and has minor bugs in IE. While making this website, I actually did what I want without considering that there are also people with 56k modems and mobile devices. Sorry. But it’s standard compliant and completely accessible to mobile browsers in return 
Alrighty then, not much more to say right now. Will add a header image rotator and some other minor improvements soon. Promise. I hope you enjoy the new look, feel free to comment whenever you feel like it. Peace out.
Sorry, work in progress here. I’m revamping the site a little bit because I thought it would be better to merge The Space Between Us with http://lukas.grumet.at. Right now I’m checking different design templates and stuff…please hold on, will post a message when everything is finished – or when everything is back to normal (but you would notice that anyways so… ).
Kudos!