Time to ditch the iPhone
Looks like blogging on the move is over for the foreseeable future, as the iPhone can no longer connect to the web using 3G: my guess is that 02's 3G gateway is down again. It isn't the first time, it won't be the last, and I have no way of knowing when service will be restored.
So far as I can tell with a machine that hides the 'uncool' technical realities from me; diagnostics are an unnecessary clutter in the clean perfection of the Mac design philosophy. And resetting the network settings was the only way to regain access when O2 came back online, two of the last thre times this happened, losing all the network passwords that I had to type in manually because cut-and-paste does not exist on iPhones.
Seriously: the 'stereotype' ads for the PC versus the Mac are all too true: the Mac and its cute kid brother are smart and hip and just the thing for fashion-conscious twentysomethings with an interest in interior design.
But nobody with a serious business to run seems to use the product that they represent.
I've found out the hard way that the iPhone doesn't cut it if you have a business need for reliable 3G communications. Am I the other stereotype? Time to admit it, you've outgrown the toys and fashion magazines, and you need to be the stereotypically-bespectacled and dismally-unfashionable PC guy - or his dufferish and slightly overweight equivalent in smartphone-land, the Blackberry.
But who would you trust to get a job of work done in the dull, real world of reliability, compatibility and contractual obligations? Is it really going to be the condescending fashion-conscious 'creatives' and their petty tantrums?
A phone is not a toy: I like to play with my oh-so-beautiful iPhone, but I cannot rely on it. There comes a point at which I realise cut-and-paste and forwarding numbers, addresses and files are not luxuries or signs that Apple's clean design is effortlessly superior to the clumsy clutter of less fashionably 'hip' and boring PC-Guy machines. They are an essential part of using email on the move and I paid for a smartphone that could do exactly that.
The iPhone isn't that machine and Apple have had long enough to know about the bugs and the customer dissatisfaction to correct this. They have not done so because they cannot or do not want to.
Even blogging, which is not a necessity in that it is essential to my social life but not commercially and professionally critical, is far beyond the iPhone. There is no way that I could've typed this into Safari on the iPhone without saving it repeatedly and recovering as best I can from the inevitable and expected crashes.
It's going back to the shop, as soon as I can find a machine that does the things I want - things which aren't, in the end, so terribly demanding. And yes, I will write off the investment in music, apps and time and effort, and the sunk costs of the contract if I have to: it's worth the money to be rid of it.
I would not recommend the iPhone to anyone I know, and those of you who have one will eventually be forced to accept the cost of getting rid of it.