Let me see if I have this straight: even with the 2.0 update, the iPhone’s Mail application still can’t read attachments saved in Rich Text Format? Nevermind that the word processor that comes with every Mac, called TextEdit, saves documents in Rich Text Format by default. That means you can buy an Apple computer, open up the built-in word processor, type a document, save it in the default file format, email it to someone using an Apple cellphone, and they can’t read it. That’s amateur-hour. No, worse: that’s something Microsoft would allow to happen.
Oh, and by the way, where’s my checkbox to turn off automatic Cover Flow in the music app? That might literally have taken five minutes of programming on their part. Upon further reflection, it seems the only substantial interface change Apple’s software engineers have made to the iPhone is the ability to add third-party applications, the sales of which Apple of course receives a cut. What about all the other very basic stuff we’ve all been asking for, going on thirteen months now? You’ve got your list, I’ve got mine, but we can both agree that the iPhone’s interface still has a long, long way to go. I just assumed they were holding it all back for the 2.0 update, but now I’m starting to wonder if they’ve even been working on any of it.
You’ve had a year, guys, since you first put it in our hands. And a year and a half since you first announced it. Have you been at the beach ever since? Since the iPhone was first rolled out, we’ve seen Apple release a new version of the Mac operating system (Leopard) whose new features are essentially unfinished to this day, and new versions of its most popular apps (iPhoto and iCal for instance) that are not only noticeably worse than their previous versions, their interfaces seem to have simply not been finished either.
I’ve spent the past eighteen months assuming that Apple’s other software products were going downhill because their top software engineers were spending all their time working on the iPhone. But after spending a week with the iPhone 2.0 update, I now have to admit that I have no idea what these guys might be spending their time on. Are they being rushed from software project to software project, not being allowed to spend enough time on any of them, creating the net result of nothing of value being accomplished? If that’s the case, you’d think they could just hire a few more. Or perhaps the iPhone’s interface is such a sinkhole that they’re spending all their time on it and still don’t have much to show for their efforts? And yet third parties don’t seem to have any trouble developing for the iPhone’s interface at all.
I find myself in an oddly contrarian position here. While the world is busy criticizing Apple for their recent network problems during the iPhone and MobileMe rollouts yet praising them for their third-party software rollout, I’ve got a different view. Much as I might find it disappointing, I can live with the iTunes activation servers going down at just the wrong time, or the MobileMe servers having a bad first day. Such things can happen no matter how much preparation and safeguarding they might have tried to put in place. But I can’t wrap my head around the fact that there just doesn’t seem to be any Apple-like progress being made these days when it comes to the iPhone’s interface or any of Apple’s other myriad software projects. A year after I first became an iPhone user, I’m disappointed to say that iPhone 2.0 feels an awful lot like iPhone 1.0.
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