confessions of a serial hobbyist

So as I use the iPhone more and more I’m running in to things it can’t do, that frankly I never thought about – things that should just be there that you shouldn’t need a bullet-point in a feature list to have…

1. The ability to save and download files. I mean come on, really Apple? This “breakthrough internet device” can’t save an attachment from an email or download a file from the web? I almost want to hope that I’m just being stupid and missing this…but I’m not seeing it anywhere. Even if they didn’t want to give access to any kind of filesystem on the iPhone (which they apparently don’t) a “Save to iDisk” feature would be cool (you hear that Apple? it’s the sound of cross-promoting your own services).
2. The ability to upload files via the web. Similar to above, Apple seems bent on having your email be the only file storage available to the iPhone. The only ways to get files on and off your iPhone are via attachments.
3. The ability to send files to my laptop from my phone via bluetooth. Often I’ll be out and about with no net access on my laptop. Since I get my email delivered to my phone, I could just grab the attachment and send it on to my laptop via bluetooth and go about whatever I need to do.
4. Music player controls without having to take the phone out of my pocket. Sure there are SOME controls you can access – a single click on the mic will pause/resume play, and a double click on the mic will skip to the next track, but what if I want to replay the song I was just listening to? And volume controls are manageable keeping the phone in my pocket, but still requires me to reach down into my pocket and find the volume rocker to press. A few more controls on the headphones/mic would have been great here especially since there’s no controls on the iPhone itself – a purely touchscreen device doesn’t lend itself well to touch-only use…

Lastly, I wish I could say that web browser stability is something I took for granted, but that’s something that seems to be buggy and crash-ridden on every mobile platform I’ve tried. Seriously why is it so hard to make a web browser that just doesn’t crash? And I mean on some of Apple’s own pages. I log in to .mac and after logging in there’s a decent chance the browser crashes / restarts (and takes down the iPod app with it if I’m listening to music). And don’t give me the excuse of web browsers being horridly complex pieces of software – I write software for mobile platforms for a living. I know what’s involved and regardless of complexity, stability should be the top priority.

I’m sure there will be more little things that pop up, but I just wanted to note these as I thought them up. Let’s face it – the iPhone is a fantastic little device, but it’s SO very far from perfect. Hopefully software updates will help.