What I hate most about the iPhone

From the point of view of somebody using an iPhone outside the US:

- No way to change the keyboard layout (so no Umlauts when I write in German)
- Auto-Correction gets in the way when not typing English words
- No way to just turn of Edge and keep the rest of the phone online
- No MMS
- No iChat, no VOIP client

>Unless I misunderstand, you can set when the iPhone checks for mail
>at Settings/Mail/Autocheck.

Yes, but that's not the same thing. It still doesn't stop it from
checking email simply by going to the mail program, no matter what
you have the "Auto Check" option set to. As I stated below, I don't
understand why Apple took the control over whether to check for email
or not away from the user.

>Now what displeases me is the frequent stall I encounter when
>deleting mail. The delete will be touched and the color may or may
>not change but nothing wil happen for many seemingly interminable
>seconds before deletion takes place..

Yes, this happens to me also. Seems like when this does happen mail
is trying to connect/download again, even though all I've done is
touch the delete button.

Brian White

My email disappears so I can't download it and then read it later
when I have no connection and
I want to be able to turn all applications horizontal to access the
larger keypad and viewing screen.

Sandy

1. When looking at the telephone app, "recent" list, there is no
distinction between an incoming and outgoing call. (unless you
happened to MISS an incoming call, in which case you get the red font
as well as the ability to filter via the "All / Missed" buttons at the
top)

2. Too slow to get to favorites; sounds like the imminent update might
address this via a home button double-press. [ whoa I see that this
update has arrived, and this is indeed fixed]

3. Impossible to type a "#" character when using safari (a rare
need, but I needed it yesterday...)

4. speakerphone volume is absurdly low. (given how loud those
speakers can play other audio) [another one fixed by the new update,
apparently]

Good morning,

On 27/9/07 at 5:26 AM -0700, Alexander Hoffman
<ahoffmanaledev.com> wrote:

>Fundamentally, the software appears to be designed under the
>assumption that either WiFi or EDGE will be available virtually all
>the time. That assumption doesn't hold true in cities where people
>spend a lot of time on the subway, as in NYC.

I'm just curious; how widespread is this problem? I've never had
problems using my phone (not an iPhone) on the train in tunnels
in Sydney. I don't know the details but I'm guessing that the
carriers have underground cells. I'm also guessing that there is
a lot more tunnel distance to cover in NYC, but I would have
thought the population was large enough to warrant the extra coverage.


Charlie

--
    Charlie Garrison <garrisonzeta.org.au>
    PO Box 141, Windsor, NSW 2756, Australia

O< ascii ribbon campaign - stop html mail - www.asciiribbon.org
http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1855.txt

On Sep 28, 2007, at 4:35 PM, Brian White wrote:

> Yes, this happens to me also. Seems like when this does happen mail
> is trying to connect/download again, even though all I've done is
> touch the delete button.

One way of for the mail client (Mail on the iPhone, for example) to
operate the POP protocol is for the mail client (Mail, here) to
download messages and leave them on the server, then give the DELE
command for the message when the user says Delete. I suspect that's
what's happening here. And that's better than downloading and
holding in memory, sending DELE, and then crashing and making the
message vanish forever.

(Compare with good old Outlook Express, which downloads N messages
not marking them on the server as read and then crashes on N+1. On
the next connection, it will download those N messages again and
crash again. Rinse. Repeat. Causes lots of support calls to ISPs.)

   --John

On Sep 28, 2007, at 4:35 PM, Charlie Garrison wrote:

> Good morning,
>
> On 27/9/07 at 5:26 AM -0700, Alexander Hoffman
> <ahoffmanaledev.com> wrote:
>
>> Fundamentally, the software appears to be designed under the
>> assumption that either WiFi or EDGE will be available virtually all
>> the time. That assumption doesn't hold true in cities where people
>> spend a lot of time on the subway, as in NYC.
>
> I'm just curious; how widespread is this problem? I've never had
> problems using my phone (not an iPhone) on the train in tunnels
> in Sydney. I don't know the details but I'm guessing that the
> carriers have underground cells. I'm also guessing that there is
> a lot more tunnel distance to cover in NYC, but I would have
> thought the population was large enough to warrant the extra coverage.
>

Even the little rail tunnel under downtown Everett, WA is enough to
interrupt EDGE service (observed Wednesday).

I suspect you're right about the Sydney system having cell sites in-
tunnel.

In New York City, on the other hand, I suspect many parts of the
system still do lighting by using track power, wiring bulbs in series
(6 was common) to make the voltage reasonable (low, with 6 bulbs)
(and interspersing bulbs from each group with others so that one area
didn't suffer when a string lost a bulb). Oh, and left-hand
threading to discourage "alternative shopping". Cell equipment
unlikely.

   --John

At 4:35 PM -0700 9/28/07, Charlie Garrison wrote:
>On 27/9/07 at 5:26 AM -0700, Alexander Hoffman
><ahoffmanaledev.com> wrote:
>
>>Fundamentally, the software appears to be designed under the
>>assumption that either WiFi or EDGE will be available virtually all
>>the time. That assumption doesn't hold true in cities where people
>>spend a lot of time on the subway, as in NYC.
>
>I'm just curious; how widespread is this problem? I've never had
>problems using my phone (not an iPhone) on the train in tunnels
>in Sydney. I don't know the details but I'm guessing that the
>carriers have underground cells. I'm also guessing that there is
>a lot more tunnel distance to cover in NYC, but I would have
>thought the population was large enough to warrant the extra coverage.

The MTA (the quasi-governmental agency that runs the NYC subway) just
announced this week that all stations will have cell phone access in
SIX years, with the first ones rolling out in TWO years.

Mind you, this is subway stations, not in the tubes themselves.

(Of course, above ground stations and stretches of track already are
cell friendly, and there are a few stations where cell signals bleed
in, already.)

******************************

So, what about other cities' subways? Boston? DC? Anyone else?
--
=Alex Hoffman
Leadership, Policy & Politics
Teachers College, Columbia University

> Message #15: Re: What I hate most about the iPhone
> Posted by: charlie Date: Sep 28, 2007.
>....
> I'm just curious; how widespread is this problem? I've never had
> problems using my phone (not an iPhone) on the train in tunnels
> in Sydney. I don't know the details but I'm guessing that the
> carriers have underground cells. I'm also guessing that there is
> a lot more tunnel distance to cover in NYC, but I would have
> thought the population was large enough to warrant the extra coverage.

Not in the London Underground at least. I've heard rumours that it's
going to happen in the next few years, but thankfully, I don't think
I'll be here to see (or rather hear) it. It's bad enough to hear
someone else droning on at top volume about something inconsequential
on the train or the bus, let alone the tube, although the train noise
would mask some of it, I suppose.

But then again, given bombs may be set off by mobiles, maybe it will
never happen.

Regards,

GAM

It seems there's no way to tell whether you have unread text messages
or missed calls when the phone's screen is turned off. Most other
phone have a small LED that starts blinking when you've missed
something. So if I leave my phone on the table, bring the trash out
and come back in, most phones will tell me if I got an sms while I was
out.

The iPhone doesn't do anything like this, so I'll have to quickly turn
on the screen to make sure I haven't missed anything.

On Sep 29, 2007, at 10:58, Alexander Hoffman wrote:

> So, what about other cities' subways? Boston? DC? Anyone else?

Verizon has the tunnels and stations wired in DC.

Mostly decent strength but still has some dead spots.

Already, I take issue with some of Apple's choices in the iPhone:

In settings one can set the iPhone to send yourself a BCC, but no one else. I consider this a clear defect in design. There are many instances when a BCC is necessary and appropriate, and I note that on all my Macs in Mail there is such a thing. I can't imagine what the designers were thinking.

The same with multiple signatures. In some accounts, there are reasons to have a lengthy signature, such as a confidentiality warning to maintain legal privilege. Again, what were the designers of the device thinking? For example, note the signature below. In some accounts, I may only want one of the websites to show, but all of them in another. Surely, the device's capacity is not the issue. This failure was obviously a design choice by Apple.

The device synched beautifully with my MacBookPro Intel, but now the iPhone won't send Mail. The phone works, my number was transferred, text message is OK, but send won't work even though receiving Mail is no issue -- probably because AT&T and Apple set it so their servers think I'm going to spam them or somebody and have a block on this device thus necessitating some special settings in the send smtp.

Dave

Dave Clark

My wife has been bitten by a UI glitch in the iPhone calendar app.
She noticed that events she was entering (typically in the midst of
talking with someone, so somewhat distracted) were disappearing. She
tracked the problem down to the misleading placement of the Cancel
button on the event entry screen. Many iPhone applications (e.g.
Mail, Photos) put a button in the upper left of the screen to
indicate "go back". The calendar application's event entry screen
puts a Cancel button there. So, after entering an event name, time,
and alarm settings -- and each time hitting "Save" -- she was hitting
that upper left button to "go back" to the main calendar screen. And
indeed, pushing that button does take you back to the main screen, so
it isn't obvious that anything is wrong, but in fact you just have
deleted all the information you previously "saved".

Overall I'm very impressed at how much functionality the iPhone
provides in a very simple interface, but this is one place where I
think they need a better design.
--
Jim Matthews
Fetch Softworks
http://fetchsoftworks.com

On 10/02/2007 05:09 AM, "dave28c" <dave28cmac.com> wrote:

> The same with multiple signatures. In some accounts, there are reasons to have
> a lengthy signature, such as a confidentiality warning to maintain legal
> privilege. Again, what were the designers of the device thinking? For example,
> note the signature below. In some accounts, I may only want one of the
> websites to show, but all of them in another. Surely, the device's capacity is
> not the issue. This failure was obviously a design choice by Apple.

In cases where such things are "required", (because the legality of such
disclaimers is dubious, and the functionality of them inane), the solution
is not to allow the user any control over it whatsoever, and apply it at the
server. You then require on pain of Bad Things that all such correspondence
be sent through specific SMTP servers, and this is no longer a client issue
at all.

We'll leave off on the lack of thought process that makes people think such
things actually would protect them in court.

--
John C. Welch Writer/Analyst
Bynkii.com Mac and other opinions
jwelchbynkii.com

On Oct 2, 2007, at 6:09 AM, dave28c wrote:

> The device synched beautifully with my MacBookPro Intel, but now
> the iPhone won't send Mail. The phone works, my number was
> transferred, text message is OK, but send won't work even though
> receiving Mail is no issue -- probably because AT&T and Apple set
> it so their servers think I'm going to spam them or somebody and
> have a block on this device thus necessitating some special
> settings in the send smtp.

it could be that your ISP doesn't permit you from sending outgoing
mail when you are on a different network than theirs. if this is the
case, the solution is to use AT&T's SMTP server (cwmx.com, no user
name or password needed.) the only catch is this only works when
you're on EDGE so if you are connected to a wi-fi network you need to
shut it off to send mail.

In response to the umlauts/accents issue for European users that Mathias wrote about earlier: With the keyboard displayed, click and hold the "U" key. This will pop up the "flag" with the not just the letter "U", but all accented varieties of the "U" including the umulaut, allowing you to choose the correct one. (This works with punctuation marks too---click and hold the question mark, and you get to choose between the regular and upside-down question marks.) Pretty cool. (Perhaps this was included in 1.1.1 in anticipation of the impending launch of the iPhone in Europe.)

On a somewhat related note, I was visiting the Japanese Wikipedia page today (http://ja.wikipedia.org/) and tapped on the search phrase field. This resulted in a slightly elongated keyboard with some blank space at the top. As I started typing, it began converting the keyboard input into Japanese, like a slightly crude version of predictive text input used on Japanese cell phones. (I couldn't get it to do this using www.google.co.jp, so I am not sure what triggers this behavior.)

So, it appears that multi-lingual keyboards are built into the 1.1.1 update. (I didn't notice this behavior in 1.0.2.) Right now, it isn't particularly useful since there is no way for the user to trigger the keyboard switch. But true multi-lingual capability (not just display) may be just a small software update away.

Tomoharu

On 10/02/2007 16:53 PM, "scruffy" <scruffy04gmail.com> wrote:

>> The device synched beautifully with my MacBookPro Intel, but now
>> the iPhone won't send Mail. The phone works, my number was
>> transferred, text message is OK, but send won't work even though
>> receiving Mail is no issue -- probably because AT&T and Apple set
>> it so their servers think I'm going to spam them or somebody and
>> have a block on this device thus necessitating some special
>> settings in the send smtp.

>it could be that your ISP doesn't permit you from sending outgoing
>mail when you are on a different network than theirs. if this is the
>case, the solution is to use AT&T's SMTP server (cwmx.com, no user
>name or password needed.) the only catch is this only works when
>you're on EDGE so if you are connected to a wi-fi network you need to
>shut it off to send mail.

The standard SMTP port, 25 is so routinely blocked anymore that I
automatically use 587 instead. To do this on an iphone, add a :587 to the
URL for your SMTP server.

--
John C. Welch

On Oct 2, 2007, at 2:58 PM, Tomoharu Nishino wrote:

> So, it appears that multi-lingual keyboards are built into the
> 1.1.1 update. (I didn't notice this behavior in 1.0.2.) Right now,
> it isn't particularly useful since there is no way for the user to
> trigger the keyboard switch. But true multi-lingual capability (not
> just display) may be just a small software update away.

It certainly should be, since the iPod Touch, whose release predates
1.1.1, has multiple selectable keyboards (including Japanese), a
multilingual user interface, and predictive typing for more than just
US English. That this was not all put into 1.1.1 already seems a bit
strange. From the Touch tech specs:

> Languages
> English, French, German, Japanese, Dutch, Italian, Spanish,
> Portuguese, Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, Swedish, Korean, Simplified
> Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Russian, and Polish
> International keyboard support for English, UK English, French,
> German, Japanese, Dutch, Italian, Spanish, Danish, Finnish,
> Norwegian, Swedish, Polish, and Portuguese
> Dictionary support for English, UK English, French, and German

I would have to say that what I hate most about the iPhone is the
missing apps like a todo list or iChat. The former is the one that
really bugs me the most though.

Aaron

Alexander Hoffman wrote:
> At 4:35 PM -0700 9/28/07, Charlie Garrison wrote:
>> On 27/9/07 at 5:26 AM -0700, Alexander Hoffman
>> <ahoffmanaledev.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Fundamentally, the software appears to be designed under the
>>> assumption that either WiFi or EDGE will be available virtually all
>>> the time. That assumption doesn't hold true in cities where people
>>> spend a lot of time on the subway, as in NYC.
>>
>> I'm just curious; how widespread is this problem? I've never had
>> problems using my phone (not an iPhone) on the train in tunnels
>> in Sydney. I don't know the details but I'm guessing that the
>> carriers have underground cells. I'm also guessing that there is
>> a lot more tunnel distance to cover in NYC, but I would have
>> thought the population was large enough to warrant the extra coverage.
>
> The MTA (the quasi-governmental agency that runs the NYC subway) just
> announced this week that all stations will have cell phone access in
> SIX years, with the first ones rolling out in TWO years.
>
> Mind you, this is subway stations, not in the tubes themselves.

The fellow from AU likely has no idea how big a mess the NYC system is behind the scenes. (In front of the scenes in many cases also.) After all many of the tunnels were dug over 100 years ago. So you have decades of "working" things to work around. Add to that the US and NY and NYC "codes" and you'll see things like a group protesting that the impact statement for the project doesn't fully spell out the medical impact of the RF signals on the homeless bunking in the tunnels and this means things can take a LONG time. About 25 years ago someone from the phone company was talking about her current project. NYC had decreed that each subway station had to have some calculated number of pay phones located with certain rules applied. The waiver process was so time consuming and expensive that they would literally run new conduit and wire to a location in a station, install the correct number of pay phones and then remove MORE existing pay phones literally less than 3 feet away.

My iPhone point. Many folks in one life experience can't fathom the issues of others in another place with different experiences. Which is why v1.0 of almost anything has a few or even many rough edges. NYC is a universe all to it's own and unless you've been there and used the public transportation system it's hard to even imagine it.

David Ross