iPad Prelaunch Thoughts

It has a very limited suite of applications. Just about everything you can do on it, you can do on today's smartphones or computers. The operating system is closed and Apple will only allow what it wants to be installed on the device. It doesn't have a physical keyboard. It's too expensive for what you get--there are many alternatives for less money.

Talking about the iPad? No, these are the statements made about the iPhone prior to its launch. Indeed, many analysts believed Apple was setting itself up for failure by declaring that the company would capture 1% of the smartphone market within 18 months. As they say, the rest is history.

The lesson to be learned from this is to never underestimate Apple. How popular will the iPad be? No one knows--not even Apple. Keep in mind, the iPhone's least used application is the phone. The iPhone ushered into the market the first truly portable omni-communications device. I will predict the iPad will accomplish no less.

Sure, it may take two or three generations of the machine. But remember, in Internet time you are only talkining 24-36 months. Remember, the iPod did not exist eight years ago and the iPhone did not exist three years ago. Within that time frame, Apple will have probably doubled the storage capacity, doubled the processing speed, added significantly to the battery life, added a camera (front-facing for video chats), slightly increased the screen size, improved the screen resolution, all without making it any heavier. You will get all this at the same or less cost. Add to this reality, virtually every major computer maker (and many a wireless phone maker) will have a similar competing knockoff. The iPad is going to fail--hardly.

With all that said, the true innovation and success of the iPad will rest with those who made the iPhone successful--the gazillions of iPad application developers. This hearty group will find ways to use the iPad that even Steve Jobs did not imagine. They will be the device of choice in schools because they are small and can carry a student's books much easier than a backpack. They will be data collection devices for students, scientists, and engineers. They will be the real estate agent's most prized possession allowing instant access to neighborhood demographics, comparison house prices, and virtual house walk-throughs. They will be the nurse and doctor's link to patient records and information input. They will be the insurance agent's instrument of choice for both sales and claims input. They will become a "world-computer," because of the relatively small size, low energy demands, long battery life, and storage capacity. Oh, and they will be a great personal entertainment device.

This success is not dependent on Apple. It is dependent on the application developers who will see all the possibilities of the device. You see, that is what most people missed about the iPhone--it is the applications that will sell the device.

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

iPad Naysayers

I find it interesting the amount of disappointent many people have expressed about the forthcoming iPad digital tablet. The interesting part is the people expressing the disappointment, not the disappointment itself. Let me explain.

There are and always will be technophobes and Luddites who will have nothing good to say about any new technological widget. You know the ones, they tell how much they hate technology because they don't have phones or computers to send you their concern. These aren't the people who surprised me.

I'm talking about the people such as Bill Gates. He should know better. His concern is that the iPad does not have a physical keyboard or stylus input. This is from the guy who helped change computing from an enterprise to a personal activity. Bill, you are dating yourself. You're becoming a modern day Luddite. You and Steve Ballmer--iPod what's it good for; iTunes who is going to buy music at $.99 a song; and iPhone, no keys, no success. You guys just don't get it.

iPad is going to be a success for the simple reason that people don't know what it's good for. It is the rebirth of the hobbiest home computer. People will play with it and start using it for things that were never envisioned. Just look at the App Store. Who envisioned the iPhone as an important geology repository and reference tool? Who envisioned it as a news reporting tool completed with video editing capabilities?

Getting away from Apple for a moment, look at Twitter: Who envisioned it as a political tool for change? Who envisioned it as a live stream news feed?

Take YouTube. Who envisioned it as a stand-alone video entertainment service rather than an amateur video posting service? Who envisioned it as a political messaging tool? Who envisioned it as an important video news source?

Needless to say, the iPad will be hugely successful and it will be successful for reasons other than those Steve Jobs and his imagination shop originally intended. As Om Malik noted, the iPad is a blank slate limited only by our imaginations.

What say you?

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

The Apple Tablet

The news is all abuzz about the unveiling of the Apple Tablet (iTablet, iSlate, iPad, or iSomethingoranother) on Wednesday. Rather than rehash all the rumors, this post will dwell on features I hope we don't see.

1. The price had better be lower than $1000. It will be marginal at $700, appealing at $500, and sensational under that price. If I'm going to pay $1000, I'll stick with a laptop. I can live with a keyboard and the extra features a laptop offers as a small tradeoff for sexiness.

2. The prices above need to be unsubsidized. While access to a 3G network is desirable, I'm at the point where I'm not going to spend any more on Internet access, even for tethering. The reason is simple: 1) I have Verizon FiOS at home and pay north of $40 a month for it; 2) I have a data plan on my iPhone and pay $30 a month for it; 3) and my wife has a data plan on her iPhone and pays $30 a month for it. That is a total of $100 a month for Internet access. If I'm on one, I'm not on the other. Therefore, I'm not getting my money's worth out of any of them now. I'm not going to pay any more. I am going to give up a service before I buy any additional access.

If the price is right, I would buy a tablet for use with Wi-Fi only. Most of the places I use my iPhone now has Wi-Fi (home, friend's homes, Starbuck's, McDonald's, Barnes & Noble, Original Pancake House, and various colleges and universities). It's sort of similar to the AT&T and Verizon dueling advertisements--for all the debate on who has the most coverage, the majority of my 3G use takes place within 40 miles of home and most of
My Internet access is through Wi-Fi. From my viewpoint, Clear offers 4G in our area and could replace all my Internet needs if Apple offered an iPhone/Tablet package on Clear--total cost $55 per month.

The point of this is, I'm an Apple fanboy, but only to a point. A $250 netbook with Wi-Fi access will meet my needs just fine. To get me to the Apple Tablet, it will have to be a compelling financial benefit. Otherwise the iPhone and a netbook is the way to go.

Your thoughts?

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

iPhone Improvements

It has been almost 4 months since the iPhone was introduced. In that time, Apple has had the opportunity to experience the requests, complaints, outrage, and lawsuits of an opinionated, activist--but evidently severely loyal customer base. Across the multitude of papercuts that Apple has managed to inflict by its omissions of feature and function in the iPhone, what are the key ones that could make many of these complaints go away?

Well first, their announcement of an SDK has certainly quieted a mass of customers and hackers alike. By offering the SDK, iPhone now has an avenue for legitimate third-party applications. This capability should address the issues related to push email, alternate email clients, games, chat, and other applications that are already available through the hacker community.

However, my highest priority would be Flash capability. I never realized how pervasive Flash is used on Web sites until I started using the iPhone to cruise the World Wide Web. For sites that embed Flash as part of their site, the lack of Flash represents an inconvenience. However, for a number of sites, the lack of Flash means the site is not accessible. If iPhone is going to be an Internet access device as Steve Jobs described it when the iPhone was introduced, then Apple must provide Flash. It doesn't matter whether Flash is a Web standard, whether it is consistent with Web 2.0, or whether it is something Apple dislikes. The fact is Flash is a de facto standard on the Web. If iPhone is going to truly be an Internet access device, Flash is a requirement.

In the same way, the iPhone needs true Java support. If I am going to be able to use the iPhone on the go, use it as a substitute for a PC to browse and use Web content, then I am going to require access and use of www.TheDailyShow.com (Flash required), Google Docs and Spreadsheets (Java/AJAX required), and the ability to successfully enter text seen in an image to validate I am a legitimate user (never has worked).

Most of the rest will take care of itself (who knows, the third-party providers may provide resolution to these papercuts). The key for Apple is that when competitive products start providing these capabilities, Apple is going to be competitively disadvantaged. When that happens, Apple will find that providing those capabilities will not be enough to regain those customers. The clock is ticking and is now at 4 months. By the end of the year, I would predict that it will be too late. Does this mean iPhone will be a long-term failure? No, but it will mean iPhone will be relegated to a small percentage of the market--as what happened with the Mac. As seen with the Mac, market share can be regained, but it is a very slow, tedious process.

iPhone: Two-Month Check-up--Part VIII

This post covers my experiences with the the last of the standard applications included on the iPhone over the past two (now going on three) months: the iPod.

iPod: The iPhone was billed as the best iPod ever. In an absolute sense, I would agree. The touch interface, album flow, and controls all make it so. The iPod application is a multi-function multi-media capability that enables the user to listen to music, podcasts, video podcasts, recorded television programming, and movies--all in a small footprint. The iPod application has dedicated icons for artists, albums, audiobooks, compilations, composers, genres, playlists, podcasts, songs, and videos.

The artists, albums, compilations, composers, and songs selection all use the same "flick" and alphabet slider along the right side of the screen to choose a selection. In contrast, the audiobooks, genres, playlists, podcasts, and videos all use a more traditional menu/sub-menu/item selection scheme. However, both the videos also provide graphic images at the highest menu level, but does not really provide any advantages in selecting content.

The portrait mode provides icons for four of the preceding selection approaches at the bottom of the screen, along with a "more" button. A really nice feature is that which four buttons appear is entirely up to the user. The vertical screen provides an edit button that allows the user to drag icons to the bottom bar and to arrange those button as desired. It seems like a simple capability, but when the user rarely uses a selection mode, it is really nice to be able to relegate those modes to the "more" area.

With the exception of the video selection, when the iPhone is rotated to the landscape mode, the menu, regardless of type, transitions to the album flow interface. All album flow is by album cover (or a generic cover if the cover art is not available). Regardless of the content type selection, when rotated to show album flow, only music is shown. When a specific album is visible, tapping the "i" icon in the lower right corner will cause the album cover to "flip" revealing a list of the songs and related track times on that album along with the artist and album names. When rotated back to portrait mode the screen returns to the original menu listing before album flow was initiated.

When a video podcast has been loaded to the iPhone, it is available as both video and audio only. It shows in both menus. This is a nice feature if you want to "listen" to a video while in the car.

When a song or audio podcast is playing, a button for returning to the previous menus appears on the upper left, the current song/podcast and artist appear in a band across the middle top, and a button to flip between the current screen and a listing of songs (if an album is selected) appears on the upper right. The control buttons for starting, stopping, fast-forward, and fast-reverse appear at the bottom of the screen. The buttons are relatively small, but do not represent a problem in "normal" use. However, if you are driving and attempting to use the controls, it is very hit-or-miss. As a result, the button designs often force the user to take eyes off the road to manipulate. With the amount of real estate on the screen, it should be very easy to make the buttons larger to resolve this problem and improve safe operation of a car when attempting to use the buttons. (One could argue that you shouldn't be manipulating buttons when the car is in motion, but realistically, it is going to occur.)

In portrait mode, a tap on the top of the screen will cause a volume slider control, a button for repeating the same song or podcast, and a button to activate song or podcast shuffle to appear. These buttons are even smaller than the ones at the bottom of the screen and could also easily be enlarged for easier use (or improved mobility use).

When a song or audio podcast is playing and the iPhone is in the landscape mode, the screen shows album flow and if a podcast is playing, an image associated with the podcast shows (this podcast image does not show when flipping through songs). In the lower left is a small button to stop or start the audio. Again, for the screen space, the button is far too small. In the bottom right of the screen is the "i" icon that, when tapped, flips the album flow to the list in the same way the portrait mode upper right button operated. Unfortunately, the volume control, repeat, and shuffle buttons are not available in the landscape mode. Instead, when tapped in the middle of the screen, the image flips to the song/podcast list exactly the same as tapping the "i" icon. For whatever reason, Apple violated their own design mantra of consistency from screen-to-screen. the iPod function would be greatly improved if the flip button was kept in the upper right and the tap in the middle of the screen provided the volume, repeat, and shuffle controls. Why it was not designed this way makes no sense.

For videos, once selected, the controls operate in the same way as the YouTube application. Therefore, they will not be discussed further here.

All-in-all, the iPod application provides best-in-class functionality. The only complaint is that with a few adjustments--such as making the buttons larger--the iPod could be so much better.

In my next post, I'll finish up with my thoughts on features in the Set-up along with some summary impressions and a few additional things that I've noticed since I began the two-month review.

iPhone: Two Month Check-up--Part VII

The last post started my two month experience with the bottom row of applications--the bread-and-butter functions upon which the iPhone has based its reputation--and I started with the Phone application. This post will focus on the second application, Mail.

Mail: Much hype was placed on the iPhone mail client, touted as the best available on a smartphone. Coming from the Treo world, I can state that the iPhone has raised the bar in many areas, yet in other areas, it has failed to leave the starting blocks. First, the good.

With the iPhone hardware, Mail has a great platform upon which to display rich HTML messages. The text is clear (even when "pinched" to magnify) with a bright contrast. Quite simply, the difference between the Treo 700p and the iPhone is a quantum leap in quality. Indeed, the improvement is such that Outlook on my PC has become a secondary reader and storage device (refer to my critique later in this post). Mail is displayed in full HTML formatting with embedded graphics, something that can't be matched on a Treo. With the large iPhone screen, one feels they are looking at a computer screen, not through a magnifying glass view seen on a Treo or other phone email client. Forward, reply, and reply-to-all is easy and intuitive, with the phone's contact list being artfully integrated. Where text is too small to read, "pinch" magnifying easily enlarges the text so that it can be read.

Other nice features that I have found useful include multiple mailboxes, the ease of creating messages, the specialized keyboard for quickly entering email addresses, the blue dot indicating unread messages, and the cute, animated trash can. Setting up and controlling email accounts is also easy in the Settings application.

Okay, now for the other shoe falling. First, as with virtually every iPhone application I've discussed, Apple needs to provide the landscape view for Mail. This is critical since HTML formatted messages can get very wide which means that the text can get very small when a full message is read into the application. When "pinch" magnified, it is a pain scrolling left-to-right in a long message. While not completely mitigated, providing mail view in the landscape orientation would reduce the hassle. When messages are too large (not sure how this is determined), only part of the message is shown and a button appears at the bottom of the message to download the remainder. Prior to downloading, the part of the message that is available for viewing is too wide for the portrait orientation. Again, enabling the landscape orientation in the Mail application would help eliminate this problem.

Second, it appears that even with the application downloading a full message, there are times when the message must be downloaded a second time (or third, or fourth) when attempting to subsequently view the message. I could find no clear pattern to when it must be subsequently downloaded, but it reduces the response time performance, increases load on the already marginal EDGE network, and causes problems when it is desired to keep a message on the phone after downloading it to a PC. (Since the message is no longer on the server, if the iPhone Mail application must re-download the message, the message can't be found. Since there are only infrequent messages that are desired to be kept, it is inefficient to keep all messages on the server.) The easiest solution would be for Apple's Mail application to download the message and keep it in memory until the user deletes it. The phone has the storage space. Use it to make the device more practical, save user wait time, save bandwidth, and save battery life.

Third, since getting the iPhone, I can go days without needing to use a PC (most desktop application work is done on my employer's PC). The ability to save documents for future reference would be a plus. This is a limitation that Web 2.0 applications cannot resolve for the iPhone. For example, if I get on a plane, it is the perfect time to review Word, Excel, PowerPoint (and issue discussed later), PDF, or pictures. If the documents are in an email message and they must be re-downloaded (as stated, it's a crap-shoot that they will be available), then they are of no use, otherwise productive time is lost, or the need to carry a laptop defeats the purpose of having a highly portable viewing device (such as the iPhone). In addition, there are times when a series of photos may be emailed and it would be desirable to save them in the Photos application. This would allow reviewing the emailed photos as a slide show or by "flicking" through the series. The current email limitation makes this impossible.

Fourth, develop a PowerPoint viewer. The Treo had one and the screen was not suitable for viewing slides. In contrast, the iPhone with its landscape orientation capability and "pinch" magnifying, is directly suitable for such viewing--but it is not available.

Fifth, there are numerous times when I receive emails with phone numbers and Web addresses. Sometimes they are hypertext and touching the link activates the phone or the Safari browser. That's great. However, sometimes those numbers and links do not show as hyperlinks. This is a perfect example of where a copy-and-paste capability would be advantageous. Alternatively, it would be desired to place the phone number and/or Web link into the phone contacts. Again, copy-and-paste would enable this.

But perhaps the biggest complaint that I have is the inability to "bulk" delete emails. While most of the time this is annoying, I had a spam attack a couple of weeks back where I received 50 to 120 emails at a time (as in every hour) over a period of two days. I don't care how easy the "swipe" and delete feature is or the edit, touch, and delete feature is, I want the ability to select a group of messages and delete them all at once. Come on Apple, even crude non-smartphone email clients have this capability.

While this is a rather long and extensive list of suggestions for improvement (or complaints depending upon how annoying they are), the base Mail application is a good start. It could just be so much better with just a few modifications.

In my next post, I will review the Safari browser application and my experience with it over the last two months. In the meantime, if you have comments or suggestions for Apple, please let me know.

iPhone: Two Month Check-up--Part VI

In the last post, I finished off the row three applications (with the exception of Settings to be covered at a later date). This post will look at the Phone application--theoretically the main reason for getting an iPhone in the first place.

Phone: First, let me state that historically, I have been a heavy cell phone user. However, as I have progressed through the Treo 600, Treo 650, Treo 700p, and now the iPhone, I find myself actually using the phone less and the email and browser functions more.

With that said, let me state that I have not seen the issues mentioned in the blogosphere and the press regarding shortcomings in the iPhone's phone application. Therefore, let me address the most frequent complaints. First, the earpiece in the iPhone provides clarity and volume comparable to most cell phones I've owned (the iPhone is my 11th across two carriers) and superior to some. At my age, I'm becoming a little hard of hearing and I still have no complaints.

Second, the speakerphone works adequately for most discussions as long as the ambient noise is not too great. Volume can be adjusted as needed with no complaints. In a car, with the phone on the seat and in speakerphone mode the speaker is adequate, if a little low. Based on people I've called, the microphone sound and volume allow the caller to be easily heard. However, my car has an auxiliary input for an iPod- type device and when this is connected, my caller's voice is routed through the car's speakers! With my volume controls on the steering wheel, I can adjust as needed, making this set-up superior to a headset for hands-free use. Kudos Apple. However, speaker volume cannot be too loud or it creates an echo for the called party.

Another nice touch can be found with an incoming call while using the iPod function: The iPod's volume fades while the phone's ring tone increases in volume. When answered, the caller's voice is routed through the speakerphone, earphones, or the car's auxiliary input. When the call is released, the iPod's volume fades back in, continuing at the point where it faded out. Very well done.

Now a quick evaluation of the other phone features. The dial pad is great and I have yet to screw up a dialed number. Perhaps heavy use of the virtual QWERTY keyboard's smaller keys makes it easier to hit the big keys on the dial pad. The Favorites are loaded with my most used numbers, making look-ups in the Contacts list rare. (Indeed, I use the Contacts for email addresses more often than phone numbers.) Once again, Favorites has an edit function that allows the user to reorder the list by tapping and dragging an entry. As stated in previous posts, the ability to order entries is great and is a feature that should be provided in all applications that have list information.

The Recent function is comparable to other phones. However, I like the function's ability to provide a location when you have been called from an unknown number. Again, nice touch Apple. My suggestions for improvement in this feature would be to 1) place some kind of notation on calls to indicate incoming or outgoing; and 2) indicate the length of the individual calls. As currently configured, call information is grouped by phone number giving date(s) and time(s) of call(s), but no call length information.

The Contacts feature is very well done with the ability to "flick," tap a specific starting letter, or scroll through the alphabet using the letters on the right of the screen. All are very easy to use. If I had one complaint on this feature, it would be the tendency to accidentally hit the alpha list because I drag or fail to lift my finger completely, causing the feature to jump to a letter I did not want.

Although I do not use Visual Voicemail that much, its design and ease of use is far superior to any other wireless phone I have seen. I am always getting the first numbers of a phone number and then having to rewind--most often to the beginning--on competitive phones. Not so with the iPhone. I can stop the message, make notes, continue the message, or rewind a little or a lot. It is without a doubt the easiest to use voice messaging system I have seen. However, I did notice that messages kept for long periods of time are automatically deleted. I suspect this is an AT&T feature as most phone companies delete messages that are two weeks old (or some pre-set length of time). It would be preferable that the user have complete control of deleting. Another nice touch would be the ability to sync Visual Voicemail in iTunes which would allow a message to be converted to an audio file. Doing so would allow the message to be deleted from the phone, but allow it to be saved and played on the computer (or even loaded back to the iPhone as a podcast).

I will summarize by stating that other features such as conferencing, moving to another application and back during a phone call, call hold, and phone muting all worked as advertised and I think they have all been well implemented. Apple's first foray into the cell phone business has been an outstanding job.

In my next post, I will review my experience with the iPhone Mail application. In the meantime, if you have comments or suggestions for Apple, please let me know.

Walter W. Casey, Ph.D.
Sent from my iPhone

iPhone: Two Month Check-up--Part V

In my last post, I finished up the second row applications by giving my impressions of the Maps and Weather capabilities. This post will be concerned with the applications on the third row: Clock, Calculator, and Notes (the Settings will be covered in a separate post).

Clock: The clock application does a good job for which it is intended. I found it easy to add cities as long as the city is one listed in the built-in list. However, a nice to have would be the ability to look up virtually any city (or town) in the world using the Internet (or Maps) and be able to set up a clock for it. That said, there is a robust choice of locations to choose from that are built-in.

Adding a clock is easy. When there are multiple clocks, the user can use the edit button to rearrange the order of cities. Rearranging the order is easy. In the edit mode, simple tap with the finger, drag,and place in the order you want. Apple, why don't you make this capability available in all of your applications? It just doesn't make sense.

The format of the clocks are easy to read with analog on the left and digital on the right. All-in-all a good application. A few tweaks and it could be a great application.

Calculator: There is not a lot to say about this application. It's your basic calculator with a memory function. Since I often have the need to calculate in the billions, it has limited use for me. To make this a must have application, I would like to see a larger display register (say 100 billion?), and at a minimum basic financial functions. To be an appealing application for students, a square root function is a must. If Apple really wants to make this a differentiator, supply a menu where you can choose the type of calculator: basic, financial, scientific, trig, electronics, hex/octal, time, and conversions. Apple, make us want to use it.

With that said, the buttons are large enough and are easy to manipulate. It just doesn't do enough.

Notes: As you will see, I tend to be a little demanding of the Notes application simply because there are no alternatives on the device (I suppose you could use email, but as you will see in a future post, it shares most of the same shortcomings). For capturing brief thoughts, snippets of information, lists, and similar items, Notes is more than adequate. The auto-correction feature improves typing speed and output quality. However, it doesn't catch everything and a separate spell-check function would be a great plus. Similarly, typing with the device vertical almost forces the user to one finger entry as the keyboard is small. Two fingers are possible if you position the iPhone horizontally, but that capability is not available in the Notes application. Apple, enable landscape mode for this application so the user has access to a larger keyboard suitable for true two-finger manipulation.

My list of notes is getting quite large. It would be nice to have some type of organization capability such as folders to categorize, store, and retrieve notes. As the title is too long and the first words are the same (as in the title of these posts), it is difficult to differentiate among Notes without opening them. Again, if the application worked in the horizontal or landscape mode, longer titles would show in the index list.

Hopefully, at some point Apple will provide a simple word processor for the iPhone. Until then, the ability to upload a note to an application such as Google Docs & Spreadsheets or Zoho and then be able to manipulate the document in those Web-based applications would be a giant plus. The problem with Web-based applications is that disconnected from the Internet (such as on an airline flight), the applications do not work. If Notes were beefed-up with basic formatting and spell-check, it could serve as a good draft application if enabled to easily interface with a Web-based application. However, even if Notes had this capability, there is an issue that would still have to be addressed in the Safari browser. That will be discussed in a future post.

In my upcoming posts, I'll start tackling the bottom row applications-- Phone, Mail, Safari, & iPod. In the meantime, if you have additional comments or suggestions for Apple, please let me know.

Walter W. Casey, Ph.D.
Sent from my iPhone

iPhone: Two Month Check-up--Part IV

This is a continuing series of posts covering my two-month usage and impressions of the iPhone. My last review covered the YouTube and Stocks applications. This installment will review the last two applications on the second row, the Maps and Weather applications.

Maps: All-in-all, Google and Apple have done a great job collaborating on the Maps application. In a short summary, Maps is easy to use and is very good at getting the information you want back to the user in a form that can be useful. That is, enter a name, a city, and a state, and Maps will place a pin at every location that meets the criteria. Does it make mistakes? Yes, on occasion it will get confused. But for the most part, the information is reliable.

Maps will pull up countries, cities, states, roads, addresses, and business names in a general area. For frequent repeat searches, you can bookmark the information. This is useful when there are locations that you frequently use as starting or ending point on a trip.

Particularly nice touches are the routing button and the traffic button. The button in the bottom left of the screen expands the search area allowing the user to use the previous search result as a starting point or a destination (the button to the left of the search entry allows you to switch destination and start--another nice touch). Add to this feature the fact that you can "bookmark" frequently used locations which makes entry much faster. For example, I have bookmarked both my home address and my business address because these are frequent starting points. If I am generating directions and want the reverse route, I can press the button to the left of the entry area again and the application will reverse the start and end locations and the associated turn-by-turn directions. This is stuff I actually use!

The traffic button in the bottom right of the screen toggles an overlay of traffic conditions onto the displayed map. Outside of large metropolitan areas, this information can be sparse, but where it is available, it has proven to be a great help.

The map can be shown in three different views: Maps showing street maps of locations requested; satellite views which honestly I use primarily to impress my friends (but very useful when hiking); and the list view which is great when you need to follow turn-by-turn directions.

Maps is lightening fast using WiFi and provides decent response on EDGE. Again, as mentioned in previous application reviews, Apple needs to enable the ability to rotate the screen for viewing in landscape mode.

Weather: The weather application is a nice, east-to-set up, and easy-to-use feature. By entering a zip code or a city and state, the application will return a 7-day forecast giving general weather conditions (via weather icons such a sunny, partly cloudy, rain, etc.), high and low temperature, and the current temperature. The application allows tracking of multiple locations (how many, I'm not sure, but I currently track six locations.

Once again, my critique is with Yahoo! Not the application. If you would like more weather information, you can touch the "Y!" button in the bottom left corner. The problem is when the Web screen displays, it is once again the crappy mobile Yahoo! site used for the stocks application. The weather information on this site is actually less than that contained in the iPhone application! The remainder of information on the site is location-based, not weather-based. My recommendation to Apple and Yahoo! is to provide detailed weather information when "Y!" is touched. The most obvious missing element is radar. As a result, I have had to search the Internet for weather radar sites and bookmark them in Safari. They are more difficult to get to, but they are much more informative. As a result, I find little use for the "Y!" button.

I will be publishing my thoughts on the third row applications in the near future. In the meantime, if you have comments or suggestions for Apple, please let me know.

Why Do You Buy An iPhone?

This week has been a sobering one for the legions of iPhone early adopters and an object lesson for those considering a purchase of one. The trigger: Apple reduced the price of the 8Gb iPhone by $200. (Lost in the uproar was the announcement that Apple is retiring the 4Gb iPhone.)

However, the real discussion should be, "So, what? Why did I buy a iPhone in the first place?" Of course it is somewhat distressing that your investment of 60-plus days has depreciated $200 (or $100 now that Apple has offered a rebate--something you won't see from other wireless phone companies). But here are some things to consider. First, I bought my iPhone at retail at an Apple store. If I'm upset about the $200 price reduction, imagine how those people feel who paid north of $1,000 on eBay for one! Or what about that lady that was handing out $100 bills to secure a place at the front of the line? I think her iPhone cost around $1,600 when it was all said and done. This is the misery loves company approach.

Second, ask yourself whether you would have paid an additional $50 if Apple had originally priced the iPhone at $649. For many of us, the answer would have been yes. If it was, then you shouldn't be too upset because you just demonstrated that you didn't buy it for the price, but for some other reason. That reason could have been to be first. If so, there is a price for being first in any technology and you just experienced it. It is true being first adopter of a hybrid car, an HD television, or a laptop with a new generation processor.

The reason could have been to get you hands on new technology and a new user interface. If it was and you thought the value of that technology was $599, guess what, Apple just gave you a $100 gift certificate. That's because the technology has not changed (or if loading ringtones or accessing iTunes is considered technology, then the technology value has actually improved). You were getting value out of the technology before the announcement and now Apple has offered you a $100 credit. Once you past the emotion, that is a pretty sweet deal.

Third, I can only assume that Apple has a market that they have targeted with the iPhone. That target does not consist only of early adopters. My guess is that many are price buyers and were waiting for a certain price range to be met. This move was aimed at that part of the market. It may hurt that you paid more for the same technology, but this is a market reality and is not unique to Apple products.

Finally, as mentioned by numerous blogs, Apple is getting ready to introduce another model iPhone--probably a 16Gb version. They had to make room at the top end of their market price range to bring out that phone--most likely $599. My guess is that it will come out before Christmas. And just so you are not surprised, sometime next year, the 8Gb phone will either drop in price further or be taken off the market, and the 16Gb phone will be reduced $100-200 to make way for the next 3G and/or 32Gb model. It is simple market dynamics.

By the way, when the overpriced 3G model does come out, there will be a line at the Apple Store's door.

I've gotten my value out of the iPhone. But thank you, Steve for the noble gesture. I can't think of too many other companies that would have done what Apple did with the credit offer and definitely would not have responded as fast.

My next post will get back to my extended review of the iPhone continuing with Part IV.

Walter W. Casey, Ph.D.
Sent from my iPhone