{ Monthly Archives }
So the iPhone is great, amazing, love it. Yes indeed. There are a few annoyances that I have with it, after several weeks. Some are Apple’s fault, some are not.
-Super-annoying GSM buzz. Also known as the “Blackberry buzz” (see here for Wall Street Journal story describing the issue, let me know in comments if article is not freely available.) This is a problem that has come about with the rise of smartphones, as they can cause interference with audio systems and speakerphones and emit an obnoxious buzzing noise. I’ve had two Treos, a Moto Q and a Blackjack and have only ever experienced the buzz when the phone is too close to my speakerphone at work.
The iPhone is a massive offender, as placing it on the same physical surface as any speaker system results in a horrible buzz. At home, I have to place it on top of my laptop if I want to keep it on my desk; apparently the laptop breaks the buzzing connection. At work, I have to keep it on a pile of papers a couple feet from my computer speakers, or up on my bookshelf. Beyond the annoyance of actively managing the location of my iPhone, it has meant that I can’t use it as my music device at work. From any position on my desk that allows me access to the controls and a view of the screen, the iPhone is too close to the speakers and buzzes like a madman. This limitation on music playback is the biggest downside to the device so far. Short of a firmware update, I’m not sure how Apple addresses the problem (and that’s only a guess, as I don’t really understand why the iPhone is so much worse than other devices I’ve owned).
-Wonkiness with e-mail program. After a couple weeks of trouble-free e-mailing using my Fastmail IMAP account, I’ve run into repeated problems where the mail app crashes immediately upon selecting it. I failed to follow the proper rules of eliminating potential causes one by one and instead restored my iPhone twice (basically taking it back to original configuration), thinking the Mail app had gotten corrupted. No dice. Next thought: let’s try ruling out the e-mail account. Ta da! Yahoo worked just fine, but so long as the Fastmail account was enable, crash city. I poked around on the web and discovered a Fastmail user forum thread on point (gotta love the web). One user has just posted a workaround, but even if it works, it’s an ugly hack that doesn’t make me a happy iPhone user.
Whose fault is this? Fastmail’s or Apple’s? I’d have to guess that it is Apple, and they have a non-standard IMAP implementation somewhere in the Mail app that is causing problems. They don’t fully support the IMAP protocol (no IDLE? c’mon) and have used a proprietary setup for the touted Yahoo push IMAP account, so they’re likely to be crapping on the standards. (They also have a flawed implementation of how to handle URL links in outgoing e-mail messages in the Mail app on OS X that leads to much frustration for mail recipients; don’t get me started on that.) Also, Fastmail is a leading IMAP provider, much favored by the Internet cognoscenti. However, without canvassing forums for other leading IMAP providers to see if they are having the same issue, I can’t rule out the possibility that this is Fastmail’s fault. See the Duke WiFi issue, whereby Duke University initially blamed the iPhone for campus-wide WiFi network problems. Turns out there was a flaw in Cisco’s hardware that had previously gone undetected. We’ll see.
-Cord wrangling. Every time I pull my iPhone out of my pocket, I have to wrastle with a couple feet of headphone cord. Although I have a little bit more cord to deal with on the iPhone than I did with my iPod, due to the cord adapter made necessary by the iPhone jack location, most of the problem is not Apple’s fault. Rather, so long as headphones have cords and users need different lengths of cords, there will be an issue of too much headphone cord.
The best solution I’m aware of so far is that adopted by the headphone maker Shure. Shure uses very short cords that run down from the headphones and meet at the neck and terminate in a jack. Included in the headphone kit are cord adapters of various lengths, so you only have as much cord as you need. Unfortunately, I own a pair of Etymotic canalphones, so I’m out of luck until I upgrade.
Etymotic came out with a set of Bluetooth headphones, but they’re clearly a first-gen product. The headphones are like regular ear buds or canal phones, but with large rectangular boxes attached to it, and there is still a cord running between the headphones. Also, you need to connect a Bluetooth adapter to the iPod via the dock connector. You might think that this wouldn’t be an issue on the iPhone, since it includes Bluetooth support, but Apple hasn’t enable the A2DP Bluetooth stereo protocol yet. Hopefully that’s just one of many features to be enable with a subsequent firmware or software update on the iPhone. (Another iPhone bugaboo: many/most iPod accessories that use the dock connector don’t work with the iPhone, so the bundled Etymotic Bluetooth adapter might not even work.)
Following my “Wii ain’t all that” post recently, I’m compelled to write that I have ordered a Wii bundle from Wal*Mart. What prompted the change of heart? Mostly it was due to playing some Streets of Rage 2 at the Walton residence on Sunday night and realizing how much fun the old-school games are to play. Chris says he plays them as much as a new classic like the Wii Zelda. The Virtual Console (Genesis, Super Nintendo, NES, N64 and TurboGrafx games available for purchase and download) has an awesome selection. I can’t wait to dig into a little Moto Roader or Dungeon Explorer, some TurboGrafx launch games that I spent hours playing. Jesus. That was almost 20 years ago! 1989, to be precise. Relatively speaking, I’m getting old.