jules blog

Oh, iPhone. You’re so close to being perfect yet so far away. You’re a train that’s just left the station and I’m running along behind carrying my, ahem, technology baggage. I’ve got my ticket in hand but you’re just out of reach.

And, damn girl, I just can’t get on board when you’re all distant like that.

My chum Barry Reicherter was kind enough to send along a link to the carefully choreographed iPhone SDK launch event. It’s always, always fun to watch Steve get up, turn on the reality distortion field, and take control of our minds and the stage. Phil was next and, gosh darn it, it’s laudable for the guy to have the chutzpah to get out of his seat and follow one of the greatest presenters of all time.

Now the launch event dust has settled does this put any of us who are still on the fence closer to making the jump to the iPhone?

Consider TechCrunch’s good look at the iPhone Human Interface Guidelines. The article did a good job of outlining a troubling feature:

Thou shalt only run one app at a time.

Gruber succinctly says:

To be fair, I don’t think many of Apple’s first-party apps run in the background, either. The Phone, SMS, Clock, iPod, and Mail apps do. Or at least they have helper app background tasks that do. But the other ones all seem to quit when you go to the home screen — you don’t really notice because they launch fast, quit fast, and save automatically.

This is one of the irritating things that has kept me from using the Helio Ocean as much as I should. The statement is 100% right but of limited use with an always connected device, alas. On any given day I have AOL Instant Messenger, Google Talk, and Blackberry messenger running in parallel. For IM to be taken seriously on the iPhone this rule must be bent or broken. Especially for adoption with a multitasking generation that believes email is for old people (Exchange push or otherwise). We have to have it both ways, Apple.

I could live with this for a while as it willy surely get fixed. However, the number one show stopper revolves around consuming or producing information.

At 13:07 in the video we have “for those of you who’ve never used typing in an iPhone and wondered how it is it’s awesome” and shortly after there are a few nervous chuckles from the audience. The residual effects of the reality distortion field must have dropped. I’ve tried to type on my iPod Touch when it’s a bit cold and it’s a non starter. In the northern bits of the East Coast it gets pretty nippy and down in the Southern bits it gets really hot and sticky. Having too little or too much moisture on your fingers doesn’t work well with touch screens. Not a problem in Cupertino, apparently.

I’m disappointed that I can’t hook up an external Bluetooth keyboard as I can with the Nokia N95 . In my own defense it’s not a case of ‘confused old man fails to grok new technology’ as I was off to a flying start with SureType from the very start. SureType just sucks a little less than the iPhone’s virtual keyboard.

It’s notable that the micro sized hunt-and-peck method didn’t work for me with the Sony Ericsson P900 either. In the past I found myself flipping up the flap on the front and going back to T9 predictive input when juggling coffee, doors, and texting on the run.

But if you actually watched the video you’ll notice that Phil is doing all this typing with his bloody thumb.

Ok, clearly it’s not you. It’s me.

It’s hard not to want to believe. That gorgeous form factor, the screen, lickable user experience, mobile Safari, it’s all so tempting. Perhaps a fix for us greasy, sweaty finger types would be a slider form factor and the option to dispense with the on screen keyboard completely.

Maybe in the next version. Until then the Blackberry Pearl will make do.