I promised myself I’d post this sucker at some point so here it is.
Gripe time for the iPhone. Now, before I begin, I just want to make it clear that I know I’m using a new “tech” and I know people’s experience with the iPhone has varied…but dammit, the only thing really new about it is that it has that lovely multi-fingered touch interface.
Okay, down to the suckage-mongering. I can’t say I have a “biggest” gripe with the iPhone…there are just so many to pick from. Let’s start with the most annoying to me (who cares about you?): POP3. I still haven’t figured out what Jobsian set of gyrations are required to make this happen but it happens ALL the times I don’t want it to. I’ve got a couple (no, no, I’ll be honest…I’ve got five) POP3 accounts I tap into on my phone though I really only actively use one. For those keeping count, I also have an IMAP/Exchange account on there as well…though this was happening before I added that so whatever.
The problem is that because POP3′s spec allows one, and only one, session at a time to connect to the mail server and because the iPhone under some (read: all but the times I actually try to explicitly reproduce this issue) circumstances decides to not close out this session properly, I can’t log into my e-mail via a computer (via e-mail client, you nutter, I know the Web interface works). Even when I power off the iPhone, that orphaned session is still out there…in the ether…waiting silently…watching me spit at the monitor in frustration…
Granted, my Web host could be nice enough to offer IMAP but doesn’t, but, c’mon…someone forget to add a finally block to some function in the iPhone e-mail client? Oh, sorry, knowing Apple, they likely are still using Pascal and don’t even have try/catch blocks.
And, yes, this has been reported before, though I think because most people aren’t paying attention and most resolutions involve going to their e-mail via the Web or switching to IMAP, no one (especially at Apple) seems to care despite the fact that this has been an issue since launch and there have been plenty of updates to the software since however questionable those updates might have been (anyone notice the one bug they introduced that kept the shift key down whenever you used it and were entering a password?).
You gotta wonder…does Apple have a QA department? Do they pay them? Feed them? Or is Apple living off of the corpses of QA testers that have been driven into the ground trying to meet unreasonable deadlines because Jobsian philosophy focuses on design (good design, in most cases, mind you) and that’s it?
Hard to say…as the Applites march to the Jobs fife, all the eye candy and smart ads keep the good vibes flowin so that the missteps and the “minor” flaws and cracks are ignored behind the technicolor iTunes and iPod ads…must…resist…must…Think Different…ly…Diff…Think…Mac…PC…NeXT…Pixar…Vista?
You are about to switch to a less-hacked OS, do you want to proceed?