http://duggmirror.com/apple/The_iPhone_is_a_piece_of_shit_and_so_is_your_face/?u=iphone

This guy has a, how do you say it, one track mind, but in the light of this particular discussion it’s a funny posting :D

Yeah, it’s disappointing that Flash isn’t supported on the first-cut iPhone. I feel sorry for developers who have to use AJAX to bring RIAs to this device. Imagine the spaghetti throwaway code that will result. Ah…

On the brighter side, consider the ramp-up time we have as Flash developers to eyeball what works and what doesn’t on the iPhone, and shape our products based on this information. We all know Adobe and Apple will marry their technologies on this platform.

>Funny, more people have Flash player than any single browser. Furthermore, Flash player plays more consistently in browsers than HTML does. So I’d argue it may not be the perfect solution but it’s better than anything else.

Jason the SaJ,

Thanks for touching on this issue. I am not here as a Fanboi from any camp. As for myself, one of my goals. in an academic setting, has been the study of the exchange of data between unlike systems, from the years I do not wish to admit, but included working in a “Micro PC LAB” with very unlike systems in the very early 80’s.

I am not here to debate your position about Flash or its user installed base. Standard, as you well know, are set by boards (i.e. IEEE and their likes). These boards are not based on “the Majority Rules” as you seem to argue.

While I am not sure what they are debating now, we all know Adobe and Apple are working on this issue. Will it led to a standard?, Iis it about money?, Is it about security?, God knows and even she wonders. I have a felling its about all three.

Just remember Apple and Adobe are like a married couple. All will be fine in the end, just duck fast if you find yourself in their paths about this issue.

I was just thinking that it might be easy to re-create some of the aspects of iPhone’s movements in Flash. On mousedown (touch) track mouse movement, then on mouseup stop. Evaluate co-ordinates.

True, a mouse only provides a sinle point device. But I hear that future MacBooks are going to support multi-touch trackpads and I imagine soon someone will release such for the PC as well.

In which case perhaps the mouse event needs to be made an array. But I really see no reason why Adobe could not support such behaviors in the Flash engine.

- Saj

Thanks for making some excellent points….

****

Regarding Flash…

Why am I encountering so many ignorant Mac users who have no clue what they’re talking about when it comes to Flash. The accusations of who needs silly animations or distracting advertisements is like saying who needs HTML because of pop-up adds.

Flash ceased being just an animation/ad tool. It’s now a development tool for building rich interactive web based applications. And unlike AJAX, you’re not forced to account for every little nuance and incongruency in every browser out there. The company I used to work has a massively large medical application done in Flash. I was shocked to find that while I could not browse a great many websites on my PDA phone I could utilize and run our Flash application.

“The web is not about the haves and have nots, it was meant to be the great equalizer and Flash so far does not cut the mustard in meeting this goal.”

Funny, more people have Flash player than any single browser. Furthermore, Flash player plays more consistently in browsers than HTML does. So I’d argue it may not be the perfect solution but it’s better than anything else.

As for Flash being a standard – what are you defining as a standard? an ISO certified standard? open source standard? commonly used (in which case it is)…

Flash is every bit a standard as is Safari and OSX.

****

Steve Jobs deserves a lecture….

Steve and Apple release better designs than most companies. But they’re still only at best 60%-80% of the way there to good designs.

As for the oft “why don’t you design a better”, I can…however, I have not had the opportunity to be in the right place, at the right time and to have an engineer friend (a.k.a. Wozniak) to allow me to do so.

But I can pick up almost anything and within a couple of minutes improve the design be it from Apple, IKEA or Toyota.

“Geez. You really think the company that brough you OS X and the iPhone are idiots, incapable of evaluating Flash and deciding to include or exclude it based on Apple’s own criteria?”

No, but assuredly, that they are capable of missing key aspects of usability. I have recently moved from Windows to OSX. And although there is much to like about OSX and a great many improvements over Windows. OSX completely misses the boat in a number of places that even Windows has.

****

And I’ll attack Apple straight up and in every Mac fan boys face. In fact, I’d love the opportunity to say it to Steve Jobs.

“It’s good, but it should be great!”

And I HAVE EVERY RIDE TO SAY IT!!! More so, I will speak it. With or without my ca$h. And you can too. You go buy the iPhone. Me, I am wanting a device that replaces my PDAphone but doesn’t strip away 90% of the functionality I have at present.

And I’m not sorry if this rubs you Mac fanboys the wrong way. Because complaint and demand will only make the iPhone better. Just as it did the iPod. Or would you like to still use a 1st generation iPod?

****

And there are numerous failings with the iPhone but one really great perfection – that being a sweet GUI. But just to review a number of flaws, failings, etc of the iPhone.

Missing Features that Keep the iPhone from Perfection:

(Please don’t get me wrong. I very much want an iPhone but I want a fully complete iPhone. I’d pay an extra $200 to see these features included. 1/2 of these features are available standard on most PDA cell phones. So essentially, what we have with the iPhone is 2 steps forward and 1 step back. We have the interface we’ve desired but not the functionality.)

1) Cingular. Nothing more really needs to be said on this one.

2) No broadband/3G/high speed data (only abysmally slow EDGE). So we’re using way out of date technology that limits the iPhone to to dial-up speeds. What’s the point of YouTube if you can barely watch a video. And no, WiFi is not the answer. I’ve had WiFi on my PDA Phone for sometime. I seldom use it…and never when travelling. If I am at home or work, I have a laptop to browse online – so I use that. The only time I use my phone for browsing is when I am not near internet access. WiFi networks usually require logins, and force you into a small 50ft radius. With wireless broadband such as Verizon’s EvDO I can pretty much travel from Connecticut to Maryland with internet access. Cingular has faster HDSPDA internet already available in select increasing markets. But the iPhone does not take advantage of that. To quote Steve Jobs himself, the iPhone browses too slow.

3) No voice recognition. This is an uber-big miss. Especially for a phone with zero tactile feedback. The inability to be able to voice dial is very significant.

4) Cannot use MP3’s as ring tones. And from what I understand you can’t even use downloaded iTunes songs as ring tones. This is absolutely the LAMEST thing. I am so !@#$% tired of being restricted from using music I have paid for. If I have a phone/media player I’d expect to be able to use those songs as my ring tones. From what I understand, at present you have to convert them to ring tones via iTunes. How silly is that….so now you need to waste additional space for the same song.

5) Keyboard only available in portrait mode not landscape. Would be nice to have the option – especially for those of us with big fingers.

6) No contact groups (this is a biggie for a lot of people who need to categorize their contacts). I find this hard to believe. A co-worker of mine just got an iPhone. I am waiting to see if this is true after he activates it.

7) No Flash support in browser. This is a big disappointment. All the best online content I’ve utilized on a mobile browser has been Flash based. The recent additions of Adobe Flex2, and Adobe AIR is pushing Flash applications even further on the web. Steve Jobs claim to be “full Safari” may be true…if you consider a Safari that cannot support plugins to be “full”. I do not…

8) No multimedia messaging (pix/flic messaging). From what’s being said on the web the iPhone will let you email pics but does no support multimedia messaging. The standard protocol that allows various phones on various networks to send pics and flics to each other. What good is a camera phone if you can’t send photos to other cameras (as every other camera phone sold today can do?)

9) Speakers improperly placed on the iPod (this one shocked me, I expected more from Apple). Speakers point at the bottom. The one place a user is least likely to want to hear audio from. Speakers should have pointed forward. In fact….there should have been two speakers. One on top and one on bottom for proper stereo output.)

10) No manual updating of the iPhone with content. Forced to create playlists. This is bothersome. I own an iPod and the first thing I turned off was synching. I like to manually populate my iPod. I don’t necessarily want everything loaded on automatically. This is even more of a problem when you have a mere 4-8gigs of space on your iPod.

11) No memory slot for additional memory upgrade. Would have been nice, but that said the iPhone still exceeds pretty much any other Phone PDA in terms of storage. But it’d have been nice to have a microSD slot and be able to store movies on 4gig cards and swap them out as desired.

12) No GPS – Google maps is nice, but only minimally useful for navigating if it can’t tell you where you are. I am curious to see if the iPhone will support a bluetooth GPS. Otherwise, can we say LAME-O. At least 90% of the other PDA Phones out there support bluetooth GPS units.

13) Camera has no self-portrait mirror. Ironically, this could have been easily provided by simply moving and slightly enlarging the shiny fully reflective Apple logo on the back. Go figure… No video option???

—-

That all said, I am hoping to see a number of those features added to future generations of iPhones. I’d very much like to buy a later generation iPod. And I do thank Apple for forcing all the PDA phone makers to have to leap to innovate. Case in point, HTC is already offering a multi-touch cell phone a.k.a. iPhone style.

The world of pdaphones will be a better place in two years thanks to Apple.

Unlike Jeff though, I learned long ago from the many Mormans and Christians that stopped by my door selling their religions to me. The best way to share your religion is to allow people to find it and experience it for themselves. Very few people enjoy having things rammed down their throats.

I think blogs are fun to read. Much like stock analysts and political analysts tech analysts are only speculating. Only time will tell where this whole iphone thing goes. I personally wouldn’t bet against apple though.

@Jeff: you do come across as just a little like one of those fanboys who goes wild when jobs mentions the word “patent”

@Aral: thanks for a great read. Job’s Steve’s ;) use of the word sweet strikes me a little like “hey steve, you’re talking rubbish mate”*
*on present iPhone

@Stefan: what odds are you offering?

sorry Aral for spamming your blog but Jeff… oh boy you crack me up. You are right, of course, the MP3 player market is *exactly* like the mobile handset market, they are virtually the same thing. Damn that slipped my mind. I hope Apple will have mercy with the Nokia’s of this world.

Thank goodness, I was about to start looking for a new job.

Funny, like Aral I had a really positive image of Apple and its followers. After all I own an iPod, Apple TV, MacBook Pro and an iBook and I do like them but then people such as Jeff come along and spoil that picture for me. In that you have succeeded Jeff and I will take great care not to get too excited about their products. After all if what you say is correct then we’re all at Apple’s mercy and they just let us exist for the time being, ready to take a swipe at any moment and change the internet landscape at the push of a button…

I’m still taking bets: Flash will run on the iPhone within 12 months.