Top 10 reasons the iPhone STILL sucks, even after I played with it

So, my buddy let me play with the iPhone Saturday afternoon to see if actually playing with it would sway me. I was really hoping it would.

It didn't.

Without further adieu, here's my NEW list: the "Top 10 reasons the iPhone STILL sucks, even after I played with it".

10. See items 1-10 of my prior list

Yeah, yeah, I know I'm tooting my own horn, but check out my original "Top 10 Reasons the iPhone Sucks". Part 1 is HERE and Part 2 is HERE. I stand by what I said in January. I raised some good points, and it seems like people (ahem, Steve Jobs) agree with me. Let me run down all of those with updates real quick:

- It's Ugly... yup, still ugly.
- It's Bulky... check... still bulky.
- Uses EDGE instead of EVDO... yup, didn't disappoint... very slow network.
- It's expanding the evil Google empire... yup, still doing that, even more now since it's partnered with YouTube.
- It costs too much... yup, still would need a second mortgage to buy it.
- Safari sucks... yup, it even sucked on Windows.
- Short Battery Life... yup, even worse than I thought.
- It's made by Apple... that didn't change.
- It's a GSM phone, and no one in the US uses GSM... yup, still the case, and still a major reason it won't be huge... people don't want to switch from good carriers to Cingular/AT&T.
- This story will make Digg and all the fanboys will come out of the woodwork to defend it.... check and check.

9. You couldn't activate them right away

Too many idiots bought into the argument that this would be the most revolutionary phone ever and bought it. Only problem was that AT&T had their heads even FARTHER up their asses, and they didn't have the capacity to activate all the phones. In fact, it killed their system until Saturday morning.

The irony, of course, is that AT&T thought this thing would bomb worse than I did!!!!!!!!! I at least knew that the morons of the world would unite and buy this stupid paper weight. AT&T didn't even have faith in the morons!

8. Even Steve Jobs hates it

As I blogged about on the Friday before it came out, the biggest iPhone news story on the day of its release was that Steve Jobs thought the wireless connection blows. Great vote of confidence in your product there, Steve. Not much else to say about that.

7. YouTube integration

You'd think this would be a good thing, right?

Think again.

First of all, it's slow. Why? Because as Mr. Jobs puts it, the network sucks. YouTube was only successful because people had the FAST bandwidth to watch the videos. Without fast bandwidth, YouTube sucks. One thing the iPhone doesn't have is network speed. QED YouTube on the iPhone sucks.

Second point is that it's going to make everything ELSE on the already crappy network SLOWER. I'm no Internet engineer or anything, but I do watch CSPAN a lot. I know that Senator Ted Stevens got made fun of a lot when he said the internet was a "series of tubes" but really, he's kind of right. All these YouTube videos are going to clog up the already slow "tubes" (ie bandwidth) that bring the Internet to these iPhones. Therefore, Steve Jobs is going to be even LESS happy with the network speed because of a function HIS COMPANY introduced - the ability to watch YouTube videos. Gotta love irony.

6. Greasy touch screen

Yuck.

Yuck. Yuck. Yuck.

I didn't think of it until I touched this thing. I have a Blackberry. That screen gets greasy enough from holding it to your ear all day. That's NOTHING compared to the iPhone, especially since there are no buttons at all, and it's just a touch screen. Smudge marks, bacteria, and germs abound. I'm getting grossed out writing about it. I have to stop before I vomit.

5. No way to add memory

So let's see. Say I hold a HUGE yard sale, sell everything I own, and come up with enough money to buy one of these things. I get the 4GB for two reasons: 1. I only have enough for the 4 gig and I'd have to sell my body to the night to be able to save up the extra cash for an 8GB and 2. You can add a memory card, like every other modern phone.

NOPE.

What kind of mobile phone manufacturer doesn't think to add an SD card slot? Goddamn, it's already a rip off that for the half million you're paying for your phone, you don't get at least 40 gigs worth of space, but come ON! You should at least be able to add your own expansion memory down the road... LIKE EVERY OTHER PHONE ON THE MARKET.

4. No copy and paste, no mp3 ringtones

Pure stupidity.

3. Battery power - a HA - I was right!!!

Back in January, I said, "5 hours of talk time. Which everyone knows really means like 2 hours of talk time. Going for a ride and you want to listen to mp3s? I'm sure that will drain your batteries pretty fast. All of a sudden, those 2 hours of talk time is now like 60-90 minutes worth of talk time. Hell, I could talk longer than that about how much this product blows."

I couldn't have been more right! Engadget.com reports:
"Apple sez between 300-400 charges the iPhone will lose battery capacity -- you'll send it in and get the cell replaced for a fee. Meh. We knew this would be the case, but still, meh."

HOW CAN NO ONE BE PICKING UP THIS STORY?! 300-400 charges is less than a year's worth of use. I charge my phone every night. So you're telling me that if I charge it every night, within a year, I'm going to have to go without a phone for a few days while Apple gets around to replacing my phone. That's completely unacceptable.

2. RSS reader sucks

Not much to say here, except that Apple dropped the ball yet again. RSS (news feeds) are pretty much taking over the way people consume news and websites. Apple built a site just for the iPhone and it's not really good at all... it just adds a feed to Safari. There's absolutely no web app at the Apple iPhone RSS Reader site, which is completely counter-intuitive.

As I said earlier, I have a Blackberry, and I use MobaNews for RSS on my phone. It works great, it's fast, and it has a lot of selection. I highly suggest it to you iPhone users with next to no RSS support at all.

1. It will violate the GPL license

I'm a big advocate of the free software licenses and open source products. I was very disheartened to know that the iPhone will being violating the very licenses that are causing it to thrive. Unless you're in the industry, this probably won't make much sense to you, but I guarantee it's a turn off. If you want more information, check out this press release from the FSF and this article on C|Net:

http://www.fsf.org/iphone-gplv3

http://news.com.com/8301-10784_3-9737829-7.html

Even Steve Jobs says it sucks!!!!! LOL

Wow, woke up this morning thinking, "man, there's going to be a lot of hype on the news about the iPhone, complete with people being interviewed and them going on and on about how excited they were to be the first on the block with an iPhone"...

...Well, that couldn't be further from what happened.

I woke up this morning -- the day of the iPhone launch -- and the ONLY news story going around about the iPhone launch was that Steve Jobs (number 1 guy at Apple) said that the iPhone sucks!!! He brought up a point I made MONTHS ago about the iPhone - the Internet connection blows. It's super slow, and for an Internet device, we all know that's a show stopper.

Pretty sad when your president says your product sucks. Maybe he was just reading this blog. :)

FWIW, a buddy of mine is picking up an iPhone today, so I'll have a full report sometime soon. I hope that I'm pleasantly surprised, but somehow I doubt it.

Don't believe the hype!

I can't believe all the press the iPhone is getting this week. You know something's wrong when the iPHONE gets more press than PARIS HILTON getting out of jail. This is America, after all; you'd think we'd appreciate some good celebrity gossip over some stupid phone that's going to let everyone down anyway.

My prediction: the iPhone will go the way of Microsoft Bob. Don't remember Microsoft Bob? You're not alone. And you won't be alone in 15 years when you don't remember the Apple iPhone.

Incorrect information

In response to some of the comments about my browser stats - YOUR WRONG. I have to find the reference, but some of you clearly can't put your Microsoft and Apple pom poms down. Firefox IS the biggest browser out there, and I stand by what I said.

Apple SHUTTING ME DOWN?!!!!!

[[ this post has been removed at the recommendation of my lawyer ]]

Top 10 Reasons the New iPhone Sucks (Part II of II)

And for the finale...

5. Safari sucks - no FireFox?!

Safari... SAFARI? I know that Apple makes it and all, but sometimes you have to cut your losses. I think I read somewhere that Safari accounts for half of a half of 1% of all the browsers out there. That's like .0025% of all browsers. And now Apple's forcing it on us in the the form of this stupid, stripped down version on a phone. ::sigh:: They just never know when to give up.

Everyone knows FireFox is the browser of the future. They keep chipping away at Microsoft's market share. I think IE is down to like only owning 23% of the market or something like that. FireFox accounts for like 70% of the browsers out there now. Why not just include everyone's favorite browser on what they hope will be everyone's favorite phone?

Oh yea, I forgot, they're Apple, and like Microsoft, they don't play well with others.

4. Short battery life.

5 hours of talk time. Which everyone knows really means like 2 hours of talk time. Going for a ride and you want to listen to mp3s? I'm sure that will drain your batteries pretty fast. All of a sudden, those 2 hours of talk time is now like 60-90 minutes worth of talk time. Hell, I could talk longer than that about how much this product blows.

3. It's made by Apple.

I hate Apple. Yes, I have a MacBook Pro, but I've had more problems with it than the 5 million other PCs I've had over the years. It looks pretty but runs like shit. It's so hot that I can't put it on my lap (yea, yea, they're called "notebooks" now), I've had to replace the hard drive 3 times, it makes strange noises, and the SPOD drives me nuts.

iTunes blows too. Yes, I said it. Forget about all those mp3s I have from my college days without meta data - it's a bitch trying to find them because if there's no meta data on the mp3, iTunes gives you a giagantic middle finger. Re-rip them or perish... OR buy them from iTunes for the low low price of 99 cents a song. Wh wh what?! 99 cents a SONG for a crippled, DRM'd implementation? No thank you, I'll stick with AllOfMP3.

OS X is like Unix, except dumbed down. Have you ever tried compiling a CPAN module in Tiger? Or tried to use Perl at all? It's a nightmare. Apple stripped out the soul of BSD, and inserted the cloaked, lifeless shell that Satan swapped to Steve Jobs for his soul and some traction with the iPod.

2. It's a GSM phone, and no one in the US uses GSM.

As evident by Emperor W. Bush's invasion of the rest of the world, we Americans know that we're the center of the Universe. If it doesn't work here, it's NOT going to work overseas. Why do you think Stevie boy announced it here in the US?

Unfortunately for he and Apple, no one in the US will buy it because it only works on GSM networks; specifically, Cingular's network. Can you hear me now? NO, I didn't think so - because NO ONE uses Cingular or GSM over here. We can't even decide on a GSM frequency in this country, let alone have one all the carriers use. You know why? Because NO ONE CARES ABOUT GSM.

Blah blah blah, SIM card, blah blah blah. Too bad when I talk to my very limited amount of contacts who do use Cingular or TMobile, they ALWAYS hit dead spots and cut off. They drop calls more than Britney Spears forgets to wear underwear. The network is underdeveloped. Even if you disagree with me and <3 the style of the iPhone (puke) you're still going to sound like a robot whose voice breaks up every 5 seconds when I talk to you.

You're better off picking up a mobile phone from the 80s - one of those backpack "car phones" from back then will probably sound better on an analog network than the iPhone will on a digital one.

1. This story will make Digg and all the fanboys will come out of the woodwork to defend it.

I feel completely and utterly alone in my opinion. Everyone I talk to seems to be brainwashed by the hype surrounding this thing. I've shared my feelings with a few close, techie friends, and they're all disgusted by it... and they're not nearly as whiney as the homos on Digg.

I know that if this gets any traffic whatsoever, some idiot Digg fanboy is going to be like, "waa, he's making fun of Apple, lets lynch him, waa." Or, "Steve Jobs is our hero, lets flood this asshole's comments with rude posts!"

To all of you Apple and Digg fanboys, "boo f-in hoo". You guys are like a cult, and I don't like cults. Criticize me all you want, this is my opinion and I'm sticking to it.

Top 10 Reasons the New iPhone Sucks (Part I of II)

Without further adieu, here's my "Top 10 Reasons the New iPhone Sucks". This post covers reasons 10 through 6.

10. It's ugly.

Honestly, I think the design is awful. It's like we're back in 1997 with Palm OS 0.0. Big bulky "web 2.0" looking icons don't make up for bad design. "OS X"? More like "OS Crap". I have a Macbook Pro - it's elegant and everything looks beautiful. So beautiful, in fact, that Microsoft ripped Apple off with Vista. That's not the case here; I don't think Microsoft will be ripping off the iPhone.

Have you ever played with one of the newer Treos with Windows on it? It's so intuitive, so easy. Not so with the iPhone. It's like Apple ate a bunch of "web 2.0" sites, swished them around in its mouth, and threw up all over this phone/pda/ipod/piece of garbage. Microsoft seems to "get it" when it comes to the applications and functionality of these devices. They haven't build the killer app yet, but they're a lot further along than Apple is.

9. It's bulky.

There's no way this thing is fitting in my pocket. I have a hard enough time fitting a Motorola Razr in my pocket, there's no way this monstrosity is going in there. Sure, I could stand to lose some pounds off my thunder thighs, but I'm not doing it for this piece of junk. I'm also not wearing a stupid holster like those middle aged, identity crisis-riddled men who also wear the stupid bluetooth headsets in their ears to pretend like they're doing million dollar business deals in 7-11. (Note to those people: Get back in your Volvo - you're not cool, and I doubt anyone would trust you with a million dollar deal.)

My wife carries those stupid Coach purses. I could write a whole blog on purses too, but I digress. Anyway, we're not rich by any means, so she has a small purse. I think this phone is bigger than her purse. Seriously. There's no way its going in there. This thing from the looks of it is about the size of a newborn baby.

8. Uses EDGE instead of EVDO.

Bad move to go with EDGE. EVDO is superior on all levels. It's technically MUCH better, and it's more widespread. All future wireless technologies will be based on it. It would be like a movie studio saying we're ONLY releasing our movies on Betamax and not on VHS, AFTER Betamax was already going out of fashion.

Last time I checked, EDGE was 200K throughput and 2G. EVDO is 700K throughput and 3G. 'Nuff said.

7. It's expanding the evil Google empire.

Google is creeping more and more into our lives every day. I'm a big privacy guy, and I'm very concerned at the direction Google is moving in. The last thing I want to do is have GOOGLE embedded on my phone.

You do realize why Google agreed to this partnership, right? It's pretty obvious - they're probably going to collect all the data that people query on their phones so they can start spamming your cell phones with special offers. Did you search for "Dominoes" on your phone and it drew the pretty little map for you? Well, you know what? When Papa Johns decides to do an advertising deal with Google, all of a sudden, when you search for Dominoes, it might also give you directions for Papa Johns too, with a coupon. They're not dumb.

Google's going to keep making its way into our every day lives unless we stop them. I'll do my part by not buying this phone.

6. It costs too much.

Yea yea, I know how much PS3 costs. I know how much they went for on eBay. I know that some Blackberries are probably that much.

Whatever. It costs too much.

Again, I'm not a rich man, but I do okay. I'm not spending nearly a week's worth of net pay to buy this stupid thing. I have a mortgage. I'm not going to go homeless because I pay for this massive thing at the expense of my bills.

When I first heard that it would be 500-600 dollars, I though, hmm... well at least it'll probably have like a 40GB drive in it for all the music and video, right? WRONG. The iPhone maxes at 8GB. 8GB!!! I could fill that in about a minute and a half, ESPECIALLY with video. No, for that kind of money, I want something I can load AT LEAST 10 DVDs onto.

I decided...

...I'm going to do a top 10 list of reasons why the iPhone sucks. I'll probably do it as a series of posts so I can explain my reasons and anyone out there can respond. More to come soon...

The New iPhone sucks

Sooooo... after all the anticipation and amidst all the controversy, Apple finally released their new iPhone.


You know what? I'm disappointed. Simply put...


It sucks.


I'll be blogging about the top 10 reasons it sucks soon enough. Right now, however, I'm fed up.