Needless to say, I think they are myopic. Apple wins customers because of the overall experience. These days, with Apple, it’s not just how the parts come together into an exceptionally well made device. It’s not even about the combination of software and hardware. Its the retail and support experience, and now, with iOS 5, iCloud, and Siri, its going to be about how it all ties together across your devices, and even out into 3rd party websites.

iOS 5 and iCloud are going to be a major platform for future innovation. I think they are downplaying it after their miss-steps launching MobileMe, but with iOS 5 + iCloud + Lion, Apple has the foundations for pervasive computing. You’ll soon be able to close up your MacBook in the middle of editing a Keynote presentation. Review it on your iPhone while you are waiting for your flight and revise it on your iPad without really even thinking about syncing, or copying the file.

These complaints remind me of the whining about what was missing from the original iPhone. Yeah, it wasn’t 3g and lacked MMS, video recording, copy/paste, installable applications and who knows what else. On the other hand it was pretty awesome in a way that no other phone could touch, and Apple had a obvious list of improvements to make.

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No threats.  Respect.  This is progress. I’m sure lots of people are busting a blood vessel over this one.

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First time I tried restoring my phone to fix a problem with no sound coming out of the earpiece. It didn’t help (plugging and unplugging the headphones several times did), but I found out that they don’t backup and restore the photos you take on your iPhone. Idiots.

Second time I decided to restore my phone before installing the 1.1.1 update, just to be on the safe side. This time, it started restoring the iPhone while the activation process still seemed to be underway. A few minutes later I get an error message on my computer that there was a problem restoring from backup because their was a timeout. No option to try again. I went ahead and tried syncing my phone. It updated bookmarks and contacts, because those were synced with desktop applications, but my e-mail account settings, my favorite contacts, my calendar, all my notes and pretty much every other setting was gone. I was going to try restoring the phone again, but iTunes only keeps one backup, and from the associated times on the backup, it had gone ahead and created a new backup from my iPhone after all the data went missing.

WTF, Apple? I thought your stuff was supposed to just work.

Maybe you should open the iPhone up to 3rd party developers, because you aren’t doing a very good job on your own.

Update: This post is old. iPhone backups are much better now.

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Please, Please STOP. If you want to do me a favor by helping me find your underdeveloped mobile site at least give me an easy option for using your main site.

I bought an iPhone because I wanted access to the whole web from my phone. Forcing me into your half-assed mobile version is a step backwards and makes me hate you. I’m sure I am not the only one who feels this way.

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Yesterday Apple announced a major update across the iPhone line, as well as big price-cuts to the iPhone. It’s interesting to consider what this means for the future of the iPhone.

Briefly, for context, the Shuffle gets more colors, the Nano gets a bigger screen and video playback, the hard disk iPod’s get even more capacity, and the iPod touch is a lot like the iPhone without the phone for $100 less. These updates are relatively uncontroversial, other than, perhaps, the fact that there isn’t a hard disk based iPod with a large touch screen for all the video you can cram on it.

What is controversial is that Apple also cut the price on the iPhones by $200, which makes the 8gb model a $399 item, and drops the 4gb to $299 while supplies last. This is, of course, great news for anyone who wants an iPhone. It is rather upsetting though to some of those who already have an iPhone to have the price on their shiny new toy drop so much so soon. There has been a lot of huffy complaining in online forums. Meanwhile, people who bought their iPhone recently are able to get credits under Apple’s 14 day price protection. Some early adopters also report success getting full or partial credits for the price difference, though many others have not.

I think it is unfortunate that Apple didn’t better anticipate the upset this move caused wasn’t better prepared to assuage unhappy early adopters. Offering a $200 credit towards Apple merchandise up front would have been a brilliant move that would have a positive ripple effect across all of Apple’s product lines. The true Apple faithful would be excited to have $200 to spend on more Apple stuff. PC users would have strong inducement to further explore their newfound taste for Apple products by picking up a new iPod for their spouse or significant other, or perhaps a new Mac for themselves. In the end, the hit on Apple’s revenues would be minimal, especially since they are taking revenue from the iPhone over 8 quarters.

Apple also announced that they’d be selling iPhone ringtones through the iTunes store. They will run $0.99 on top of the $0.99 to buy the track in the first place and you’ll be able to select which portion of the track you want for your ringtone. It is, of course, outrageous that we are expected to pay extra for a track that we’ve already purchased to use it as a ringtone, but it is even more outrageous to pay $2 for a ringtone and not get the whole track.

Now though, lets step back and look at the whole landscape and what the implications might be.

By dropping the iPhone $200 and phasing out the 4GB model, Apple has clearly made room for at least one more product in the iPhone product line.

• A 16GB iPhone at $499 is the most obvious candidate, especially since the 16GB iPod Touch is available for $399, the same price as the 8GB iPhone.
• A less likely possibility is that they will debut an iPhone capable of 3G speeds at the top of the line. The iPhone is yet to be launched in Europe and most people there would expect something like the iPhone to support 3G, rather than just the pokey speeds of EDGE. In addition, AT&Ts 3G coverage continues to improve (slowly) and a new generation of 3G chips should bring down power consumption and increase battery life. A 3G iPhone would also get a lot of early adopters to upgrade, especially if they had $200 in Apple store credit, or, perhaps if they could use their contract subsidy from AT&T for a new iPhone…
• AT&T could start offering the iPhone at a subsidized price. Current iPhone customers already have a credit worth, effectively, $250 on their account for a free or heavily subsidized phone for signing a 2 year contract. With the new pricing, AT&T could offer the iPhone to new customers for $150, or less, which is the same price as their version of the latest Motorola RAZR. They’ve picked up a lot of new customers thanks to the iPhone, and they’d be smart to keep that momentum going by taking full advantage of the iPhone price cuts. This would also drive a lot of existing iPhone customers to upgrade if an iPhone upgrade comes out soon.
• Apps for sale for the iPod touch and iPhone. The announced featureset of the iPod touch leaves it with only 7 icons in the top part of the main screen. This creates an empty and snaggletoothed look that is very unapple-like. It makes me strongly suspect that either Apple will have at least one more application at launch, or that they will soon be selling games and other apps for the iPod Touch and the iPhone. I’m sure some iPod Touch users would like the iPhone’s e-mail client and/or an IM client even if they could only use them over WiFi.
• Bluetooth DUN support in the iPod Touch. This one is a long shot, but letting the iPod Touch pair with someone’s existing cell phone for internet access over the phone’s data connection would be a very cool feature, it would also provide a bit of an end run around exclusivity agreements with AT&T regarding the iPhone. There are totally unsubstantiated rumors that the Touch already has a Bluetooth chip. At the very least, Bluetooth would be cool for wireless headphones and simplified car stereo connections
• Apps with Rendezvous support. I’m really surprised this hasn’t happened yet, but at this point, there is really no network-effect with having an iPhone, or an iPod touch. There aren’t any cool things I can do if my friends also have an iPhone or an iPod touch. Microsoft was stupid to overemphasize “The Social” as part of the Zune launch, but I think it will soon be time for Apple to offer, at the very least, some networked games.

I expect pretty much everything, except the 3G iPhone and the Bluetooth networking, would happen in plenty of time for the Christmas buying season. I’d guess they’ll be metered out over the next two months or so to keep the iPhone and Apple in the news. I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw some sort of integration with the AppleTV soon either.

I’m worried though, that if Apple moves to start selling apps for the iPhone, that they will start deliberately making life difficult for the authors of 3rd party apps being developed now without official support from Apple.

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Then someone at the Silicon Alley Reporter picked up on the post, amped it up a bit, and then sucked up to his boss by quoting him as he “reported” assertions that there is growing dissatisfaction with the iPhone by it’s early adopters.

Whatever, I’m not surprised there is iPhone backlash. In fact, when I got the thing, I fully expected it would have broken my heart by now. After almost two months with it, I wish the data network was a little faster, and I wish it had a decent IM client (or any IM client at all), and that it would support RTSP video streaming, and dozens of other things, small and large.

What surprises me is the degree of attachment my iPhone owning friends and I still feel towards the thing. We find ourselves using it for tasks that would be more easily accomplished at our computers, often when our computers are powered up and less than three feet away.

Apple gave me a polished, sexy, easy to use device that gives me access to nearly the whole web from my pocket. Many of its shortcomings can be fixed by software updates (though I expect some may not be in order to stay on good terms with AT&T). Maybe Google or someone else will come along and release a device that’s even better for a lower price. If they do, that will be cool, I’ll probably get one, but I’m not holding my breath.

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