From the very release of iPhone I was seriously against it. From the pesky idea that everything is locked to Apple (let's get real, most of the people do not have skill or confidence to Jailbreak it), over the "OMG I do not want to install iTunes", to the software keyboard which lacks feeling of clicking it.

A lot of people still think this way, and reject the very idea of having iPhone or iPhone-like device.

However, the main reason behind such reasoning is the idea that has embedded in our heads over the years of using normal, call it "stupid"-phone. We are used to the pattern of using our mobile phones to make calls and send SMS. If you love charts, here is one:

You see, when Apple released iPhone, people were furious about "how will we make phone calls, browsing the Contacts is hard, sending SMS is super-hard with no keyboard, ...". And yes, to this day, I still agree with this. It is pretty hard to send SMS while you are walking, practically impossible. It is pretty hard to find someone in the Contacts (mainly because search filed is not fixed at the top, rather you have to scroll up to get to it), and it takes ages from the moment you decide to call someone to the actual call if that person is not in your Recent calls list.

However, iPhone, and smartphones in general, are not mobile phones. They are computers that let you do whatever you want (more or less, let's not argue on this one) and making calls is just a small fraction of possibilities they offer. With that in mind, I will gladly send that 2 hard SMSes daily, and at the same time have super-convenient access to Facebook, Twitter, email and other communication services.

Continuing this rant, there was a nice post about iPhone not winning the game in the long run mainly because platforms that are coming in (Android and Maemo for example) will be more open to developers and to people using them.

I - STRONGLY - DISAGREE

If this all was happening 10 - 20 years ago, then yes, I would agree. The metagame was different then. However, as we as civilization make progress, we are looking more and more into DESIGNED objects and not MASS PRODUCED objects. The designers (all sorts of designers, industrial, digital, interface, ...) have enough knowledge today to produce really neat, almost perfect products and objects. The failures on the market will, soon, cease to exist. Remember Nokia's N-Gage? Sure you do. It was fail of epic proportions. Mistakes like that are very likely never going to happen again in any field any more. All new products are tested, designed, tested again, honed to perfection, prototyped, redesigned, and then launched out.

The people do not want to choose from 20 bad devices any more. People want ONE GOOD DEVICE.

People do not want to download 300 free software that is hard to use and poorly designed. People want to pay for ONE GOOD SOFTWARE.

Open type of thinking for Android means one thing: thousands, ney, MILLIONS of applications and phones that suck. On the other hand, Apple will have to at least look once at the Application before it hits the App store. I am not saying App store is full of diamonds and pearls, but at least everything there has been looked at before it went to the open world.

Not to go into territory of evil applications that do some malicious things while you are not looking. Deleting your contacts, using your phone as an SMS bomber device, and many other fun things that will happen on open platforms.

Being able to control Applications and it's hardware, Apple controls your user experience of iPhone. And they are doing it well. Do you think that multitasking (e.g. running Apps in the background) is disabled on iPhone because Apple programmers suck? No, it is disabled on purpose to give each application full processing power. This means that your experience with iPhone will always be the same - flawless. Whereas if you run apps in the background on your "other" smart-phone, you will have to think what to close in order to play that 3D game, etc ...

I firmly believe that controlling the User Experience - and that experience being REALLY good - will outmatch open type of unattended approach. Design will outmatch mass production. And time here is on the Apple's side - the further we progress, the more designed objects we will want.

Oh Lord.

Wolfram Alpha, that cool project noone uses for this reason or that, released iPhone App. The catch? It costs $49.99. Yes, that is fifty of your hard earned US dollars right down the drain because Wolfram Alpha can be accessed via iPhone's Safari browser, and it works perfectly. For $0 (not counting data transfer fees, of course).

The App could be a little bit more convenient than using WA through small browser, but still ... 50 bucks?

Cnet has something to say about that as well.

Also, funny thing, that this post is right above my last post that is criticizing Apps that do not perform better than their website versions. Gee...

Today I have deleted 2 very good iPhone Applications and replaced them with Homescreen shortcuts to mobile, iPhone optimized, versions of those sites. It's simple - web versions are just better! First one is New York Times, second is Facebook.

(i just hope Facebook Developers figure out they can use iPhone favicon =)

New York Times

The App just takes too much time to load and to process data. They have even added the X button in case you do not have 5 minutes to sit and stare into progress bar even when you are downloading via Wi-Fi broadband.

On top of that, pretty big chunk of screen real-estate is taken up by unnecessary interface elements, and by permanently positioned banner. I know that marketing is important, but permanent banner is not the best solution. There are vertical 190 pixels of interface and vertical 270 pixels of actual useful data (40% wasted vs. 60% useful) - not good.

As a total contrast to that, mobile version of NYT ( mobile.nytimes.com ) website loads super fast, banners scroll away, and there is no interface to speak of. For reading news - a bliss!

Facebook

I will not go into details with this one. The App is bloated, feels heavy and is buggy. iPhone optimized website was recently updated and is just awesome. It is blazing bast, feels much much lighter and is actually easier to use than App.

Having mobile website and application at the same time is just too much competition inside the same house, and so far what I have seen, in that duel - website always wins! Mobile website is housed inside Safari, and as such allows for easy switching between sites, and links that you might have clicked on those sites. Furthermore, anyone can access your mobile website, whereas iTunes account is needed even if you want to download a free App.

One more really good thing, looking from developers aspect, is that you can change your website any time you feel like it, and skip all the drama with submitting your application to Apple and wait till it gets approved.

At MAX 2009 in Los Angeles, Adobe announced release of #3 most wanted iPhone feature - Flash on iPhone. Well, not full, FULL support of course. They will not be adding Flash support in Safari mobile browser if that's what you were hoping. Instead they will add support to announced Flash CS5 beta for conversion of Flash 10 AS3 to standalone iPhone apps.

Flash grew up to be a real monster in last few years and that's probably the only real reason why Apple did not put it in iPhone so far. Flash Lite just doesn't fit into profile of multimedia web experience and full blown desktop Flash version was just too much to fit into iPhone poor underclocked 412 MHz CPU. Latest 3GS iPhone has 833 MHz CPU underclocked to 600 MHz, and I can't help to wonder, is this 188 Mhz change in performance really enough for Flash to run remotely smooth?

Adobe said Flash CS5 public beta should by out by the end of 2009, so we all just have to wait and see.

Meanwhile, check out this crazy Flash on iPhone Myth Busters inspired video from MAX: