iPhone? Nice, but no, thank you.
Posted: 25 June 2007 at 01:21:37
So, the "revolutionary" Apple iPhone is hitting the market this week. I took some time to download the guided tour video Apple has available. I have to say I'm very, very impressed with what they've done with the iPhone.
That being said, I don't think I'll be getting one anytime soon. Here's why:
- No Ogg Vorbis or FLAC support. I know I'm in a very small minority of people who care about this, but most of my musical library is not in MP3 format and this is the biggest reason I've never cared much for the iPod to begin with. I wonder if the video realm is the same way. Does the iPhone only support Quicktime videos?
- Third-party applications? I didn't see anything in the guided tour video about third party applications. My Treo 700p has served me really well because I can throw lots of different PalmOS applications on it for lots of different things. For example, I track mileage on our cars and it reminds me of service that needs to be done.
- Will it dock with Linux? Can I use the iPhone from a Linux desktop? Last I heard, iTunes was not available for Linux.
- Only AT&T? I'm sure AT&T (A.K.A. Cingular) paid a pretty penny for the exclusive rights to sell the service in the U.S. for the iPhone when it was first released. I'm a Sprint customer. I might consider switching back to Verizon, but there's really no way I'd ever switch to AT&T/Cingular. They've got a terrible track record for signal coverage and customer service, in my area anyway.
- Third party applications!! I have to mention this twice because I use my Treo 700p a lot to establish SSH connections to servers when I'm not near a computer. The Treo doesn't offer this capability natively, but I can do it by installing one of several open source applications.
That being said, I am very impressed with the web browser demo and the tricks the iPhone can do with its built-in accelerometer. If nothing else, iPhone -- like the iPod before it -- will be the kid to beat for the next few years, resulting in good news for everyone.