3 reasons to hate your new iphone

As much as I'd like to say I'm 100% happy with my iphone, i must confess that I am not 100% happy with the iphone at all. The post that follows outlines the three reasons why I am not too happy with my iphone:

1. You MUST jailbreak your iphone, in order to do anything cool with it
2. Lack of bluetooth functionality when synced to macbook
3. Apple's general malaise with bending over to the Telco's

In Canada, did you know that you are allowed to tether your iphone to your laptop. It's a selling feature to idiots like me who commute and aren't always at a wireless connection, and the thought of 3G surfing to improve your ruby on rails app got you off, big time.

The one little wee bit of information no one told you, until you shelled out the money and signed the contract, was that unless you jailbreak your iphone, Apple doesn't have a legal app to allow you to connect via bluetooth to your laptop. It's this lack of Tethering Ability that burnt my britches. I feel it's the man stain on an otherwise pristinely made bed, and i was told to sleep in it.

Now, why must a consumer be forced to jailbreak an iphone, when HE/SHE doesn't want to. I have no desire to do anything like this, nor should a consumer be asked to. He/she gets home, clicks the App Store app and prays to find a tethering app. He/she doesn't. He/she's choice: Jailbreak and risk bricking the phone or surf via Safari on iphone instead of being able to git push from your macbook, which is what i want to do in the first place.

One company had balls. NullRiver. I used their MediaLink app to connect to my PS3. Really good stuff, cause it just works. However, at last check (story Sept 13, 2008) they had their app pulled down from the App store by Apple.

Lack of bluetooth functionality when synced to macbook

Seriously, when you sync up your iphone to your macbook/imac and get that going, did you know that there is nothing you really can do through bluetooth? Maybe in the future, there will be skads of things to do, but generally, you can't do sh!t out of the box, legally.

Users of the "lesser" phones may be shocked to hear that you can't even file transfer via bluetooth from your macbook to your iphone. I believe my first samsung in 2000 had that ability.

Apple's general malaise with bending over to the Telco's

Now i'm a pretty loyal Apple customer. I've got a whole family on imac's or macbooks, a few on iphones, one on AppleTV even. I'm no fanboy who makes the trip to hear Steve Job's speak at MacWorld, I've never read an apple based blog nor do i have an account on ehmac either, but i do troll on the #mac channel often, in IRC. So my heart is with Apple. Linux was too nerdy for me, windows... is... well, windows, so Apple is the only OS that i can tolerate, have fun with and still feel secure. I also like their attitude. Here we are. like it or not, this is Apple. You don't like it, that's fine, there are alternatives out there for you.

So how can a company with this hipster attitude, take it large from a couple of stupid Ma Bell castaway TeleCom companies? Or worse, a Canadian provider!?!?! Grow a set of balls, force these babies to allow their users to surf the 3G network via their laptop, bluetoothily through their iphone. For the amount of people that would do it, and i doubt it would be that many, as most people surf walking in a mall or at a friends house when they say "Hey, look i got an iphone and i can surf for porn from your bathroom!"

So what can be done nerbie69?

I'm glad you asked. Nothing can be done, except get NullRiver's app back onto the AppStore. There is no reason for it not to be there. Also, make sure it is priced around the $29 - $49 mark. People are nothing but cheap and this price point will allow only those who really need it to buy it.

The Telco relationship won't change. Money grubbing won't change, but Apple you can price the NullRiver app accordingly so that you keep your loyal fans happy and still save face with the skidmarks from the Telco world who are trying too desperatley, like an actress getting her 12 face lift, to keep their looks and cool.