Aye! Phone!

Well, I'm compiling a list of things that piss me off about the iPhone. I've signed up for a developer account in hopes of being able to build a GTD application that doesn't make me crazy, but I'm not much of a coder and so I'm not too hopeful.

Among my complaints was the lack of good voice-note software - you know, a dictaphone. I mean, you've got a microphone, a hard drive, and a speaker. What's to stop you from letting me record my spontaneous thoughts?

An early model Zune.

Well, I downloaded the evernote app (for free) and it's good. It's probably great if you really jump into the evernote process, putting a XUL thingydoo on Firefox and downloading the software for your desktop. But jeez, I just want to be able to press a button on my phone and say executive shit like, "remember wife's birthday this year" (for which I acknowledge I'd need both software and a wife), "sell shares in Enron", or "cover vent on death star". You know Vader would have gotten to that if that game of Simon on his chest had been equipped with an MP3 recorder.

Anyway, the real downfall of the iApp for evernote is that it wants to connect to my evernote account somewhere on the Internet. This is a pain in the ass in just enough places to make it a proper pain in the ass. I've got 18 gigs of space on my phone for just these sorts of occasions. I should be able to take annotated video and store it locally.

And actually, what's up with not being able to shoot video? It's a trick question because I know your answer already Apple - "the camera isn't up to it". Ah, well you walked into that one didn't you? What up with the camera?

My flickr account would lead you to believe I developed Parkinsons concurrently with acquiring a new phone. I know, various Apple apologists have pointed out it's a phone before it's a camera, but that's like excusing broken AC in a car by saying it's not a fridge. I know it's not a camera, but it cost me a lot of money and Apple made a lot of noise about all this non-phone stuff it can do. You know what, if the lens or the image-capture chip isn't up to snuff, tilt the lens 45 degrees and sell it as a "spy camera". I'm tired of trying to take discreet pictures while holding the phone perpendicular to the ground.

I may have gotten off point there . . . considering that the point was that I finally downloaded YouNote.

It's awesome so far. It supports picture notes, audio notes, web notes, doodles and text notes. Moreover, I can tag the notes while the phone geotags them - you know, in case all I can remember is that I had a good idea in Santa Fe. It looks as though they're working too on letting you add a contact to the note for easy calling - though it doesn't work yet.

And actually, good luck with that. Despite coming with an operating system, the phone doesn't seem to support developers who want to pass things back and forth between programs. Would it be too much to ask to be able to copy? And perhaps paste? If I find a phone number in an email, I can call it, but I can't easily add it to contacts without actually calling the person.

Anyway, I'm daniel harrison and I approve this YouNote app.