Note: I bought my Original iPhone in January of 2008. It came with iPhone OS version 1.1.3. My wife and I each bought one. To pay the unsubsidized price of $400/phone, we sold our Nintendo Wii, which I had stayed overnight at Walmart to get, and her Nintendo DS. I have jailbroken every version of the iPhone OS, from 1.1.3 to the current 3.1.2. I estimate my phone has been jailbroken 40% of the time I've had it. In my opinion, I have spent enough time with it "not broken" as my wife would say and enough time with it jailbroken to feel that my complaints are valid. I know of and have explored an adequate quantity of options for any fixes to the complaints I have. To Apple's credit, the complaints are few. For me, though, they're game changers.
One last note: I believe all of my complaints could be brushed off with an "Apple could fix that with a software update." This is true. I have zero optimism they would do it, though. As I've said, I've had this phone long enough, and the problems -- as I see them -- have remained unchanged from day 1. I do not see Apple having any motivation to rectify what I see as problems. I'll be happily wrong if they make any fixes to my complaints. Unless they're done by January, I won't be around to see them, though.
With every complaint, I'll give you my solution for fixing it along with how Android does it.
Notifications
The iPhone notification system is completely broken.
While it may not be obvious if you've never received more than one notification at once, the notification system on the iPhone is nearly useless. I'll give you an example that happens to me every day. I use Twitter to maintain contact with the online-side of my Personal Learning Network. I use Boxcar's (now free) app to get push notifications when I get an @mention or a direct message. Because I'm active on Twitter, there are times every day where I will get multiple notifications before I can access my phone. Combine that with a notification that I have an SMS message and I may get 3-4 notifications at a time.
Apple's solution to this problem?
They let me know that I have 2 more notifications "under" the one they are showing to me. What are the other notifications?
Here's what I do know about those "+2 more" notifications. They are from Boxcar. I know this because if the notifications were text messages, they would just be buried inaccessibly. (I know this because I just tested it make sure I remembered correctly.)
So I've narrowed it down. How do I find out what they are telling me? I unlock my phone, scroll to my fifth home screen and open up Boxcar to find out. (Boxcar is on my last home screen because all it does is push notifications. I can't actually do anything with them from Boxcar.) Or I open up Tweetie to find out what the notifications were. But that defeats the whole purpose of notifications. Not everything needs to be acted on right now.
How could this be fixed?
I created this mock-up by copy-pasting one UI element from the iPhone and one from OS X's Dashboard.
- I took the "home screen dots" from the iPhone which, when used on the notification screen, would show us how many notifications we have. I'd then be able to swipe between them as I do with home screens.
- I took the X in the top left of the notification from Dashboard widgets. I only want a notification closed when I am done with it, not when Apple thinks I should be done with it.
- I would also put two buttons on the bottom of each notification: Reply and Open. Hitting Reply would bring up the keyboard and it would reply to the notification in the same method it was sent. For example, if I was being notified of an @mention from Boxcar, my reply would be sent as an @mention. If it was a text message, reply would send back a text message. When Reply doesn't make sense, with Remember The Milk, for example, Reply could be changed to Complete.
- The last thing I would add is something that doesn't have a visible UI element I could create. Let's say there was a notification that I didn't want to act on right now, but I also don't want to close it and lose it. I could swipe up on the notification to send it up to the notification bar up top. There could be a little icon for each type of notification with a number for the number of "unread" notifications I had sent up there.
Do I have any faith that Apple would implement something usable like this?
No.
Oh, and give me a real notification when I get an email, not just a sound and an icon badge. Knowing that I have an email is expected. Knowing who it's from, and maybe even the subject, is useful.
Android:
Background Applications
Why do I have to stop listening to Pandora to read my new email?
Or for that matter, why do I have to stop listening to the Twins game to play some Skee-ball? Why is probably the right question to ask, though I know more about what the answers aren't than what they aren't. It's not because the phone can't handle it. The jailbreak app Backgrounder allows the ability to run apps in the background adequately. It's not the easiest to use, and sometimes would not stop apps from running when I tried to quit them, but it's proof that running apps in the background is possible.
Apple is showing zero interest in allowing owners to run more than one of the apps we've bought from the App Store at the same time. I say that with confidence because they wouldn't have bothered putting out the push notifications (months later than they first promised) if they were going to allow background apps.
How could this be fixed?
Just fix it. I don't need to do any terrible mock-ups.
Android:
Google Integration
Google integration is tacked on.
I know this one's a stretch, but....well too bad. It's my phone, I paid good money for it, and I want it to work the way I want it to work. For $400 ($100 more than my wife's netbook) I get to have complaints like this.
Let's look at Gmail on MobileMail (Apple) and Safari (Google web app):
Why don't I just use the Gmail Mobile web app? My notifications of new email show up as badge updates on MobileMail's icon. So I'd have to use up two of my icon spots to have them both available. Sure, that's just an annoyance. But annoyances are annoying. Or I could pay $0.99 and have Boxcar push my Gmail notifications to me. But that's just another notification that would get lost in the lock screen's black hole
How could this be fixed?
Turn Gmail's web app into an actual app that can receive notifications and run in the background -- so I can hit send on an email, lock my phone, and have the email still send.
Android:
Now what?
I'm moving to Android.
I don't hate my iPhone. I don't love it either. The OS is numbered 3.1.2 but it feels like a 1.0 product. Take a quick look at the features 3.0 brought and ask yourself why you're excited for those things. As someone who waited a year-and-a-half (75% of a mobile contract's life) I can tell you that every "upgrade" was long overdue. I'm just not excited to use my iPhone anymore. And I think excitement is important when choosing a cell phone. I carry this thing with me wherever I go, all the time. I'm locked into a 2-year deal with whatever phone I choose. I pay very good money for one of these things. After my house, my car, my furniture, my TV and my Macbook, my iPhone is seriously the sixth most expensive tangible purchase I've made. Granted, I bought mine before AT&T started subsidizing their price, but I don't make many $200 purchases throughout the year.
So before you say, "It's just a phone," remember: this is just a blog. These are just my opinions. And I did offer suggestions on how to fix them.
