Apple iPhone appeals and disappoints
I have to confess to being quite awed when I actually got round to reading about the new Apple iPhone. I’m a big fan of the user interfaces Apple designs for their embedded systems. (Strangely, I’ve never thought their main apps like iTunes or Mail were very friendly.)
As always though, I am disappointed by the follow-through. Apple always seem to cripple things out of a desire to control rather than for technical or usability reasons. There’s no reason for the iPod not to play lossless audio formats (the alternative RockBox firmware does this) for example; yet they don’t. There have been a lot of rumours about how configurable the iPhone will be, and I fear the worst. They make a big deal about it running Mac OS X but that isn’t much use if the advantages of OS X - the developer tools, the community of programmers - can’t be harnessed.
I am disappointed because of the (apparent) failure to live up to the potential. Other people seem to hate the idea of the whole device. The BBC seems to have gone to great length to find people who’ll make their dislike known.
But I don’t want this thing in the least. I rather like not wanting one. Presumably it’s a phone and you can get music off it, but I like silence. I don’t want to walk around listening to music. I don’t have an iPod, I just read about them.
This fellow is obviously not the target market for such a device - he doesn’t have an iPod and he barely uses the mobile he has. Why interview him? No-one ever asked me whether the features of the Joint Strike Fighter appeal to me; I’m not ever going to need one or use one.
Even worse is the quote from Will Self, a man who I previously had a lot of respect for:
I believe - perhaps erroneously - that in my own small way I’m putting a brake on the hurtling wheels of technical innovation …
In what world does he live that technical innovation is considered a bad thing? And that he is proud to hinder it?