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.

iSigh

It's a wonder I didn't get smeared all across Delaware on the way home from NYC this morning.

It's all I can do not to fiddle with my new iPhone. I'd downloaded the Pandora application and I can report that it works nicely. I'm a longtime fan of Pandora since a friend turned me on to it. (Check out Pandora.com now if you'd like an online "radio" station that plays music similar to a song or band you suggest - takes a few seconds to get going after you register).

I assumed it would need WiFi access in order to stream the songs, but as I hurtled along strictly within the speed limit of each of the 4 (?) states I passed through, it managed to play the music I wanted. It even paused when I got a phone call and started up again once I hung up. Radio that waits while you're on the phone is a fancy luxury. The only downside was that as I pulled into Maryland, it started wondering if perhaps by "Gnarls Barkley" I'd meant Dru Hill and some horrifying freestyle crap I most certainly didn't want to hear.

So, Pandora was a success, but now I'm getting frustrated. I'm used to being able to tinker with technology and the iPhone sort of sells on this premise. I'll withhold judgment for a while, but I'd really like to be able to choose on an application-by-application (or even instance-by-instance of an application) basis whether or not the screen was going to lock up after a minute. I guess for drives I could turn that function off entirely.

I'd also like a way to grab a phone number out of an email and turn it into a contact. I can dial it, so the phone knows it's a number. Why can't it let me create a contact? Does anyone know offhand of an app that allows that? While we're at it, is there an app for messing with the camera - which blows. I'd like to affect shutter speed and so forth.

I've got a couple of other wishes on my list - like a good IM client and a way around the stupid texting fees - so I'll probably be jailbreaking my phone eventually. Have to look into that a bit more. Oh, and iTunes makes me just furious.

stoopid iPhone

I may not be able to stand myself if I buy my new iPhone in NYC's meatpacking district. Phil, if I come home with my collar popped I'm counting on you to fucking kick my ass.

I was visiting As. - who I'm staying with in NYC - at her job in the Chelsea Market and decided I'd go over to the new Apple Store for giggles. I got there and a very nice young lady informed me that they'd just sold out half an hour before.

No! Way! I guess I'll be coming back tomorrow since the feeding frenzy seems to be over and regular mortals can buy iPhones.

Meanwhile, trendy NYC remains kind of preposterous. I was riding a hipster bike in Brooklyn today (don't ask) and wanted to pull over and push myself down for being such a dork.

I'm totally getting a new iPhone . . .

Just not yet apparently.

I talked to a rather harried-sounding bloke down at the Apple-Store-cum-iPhone-store and he told me that while they had a small number of iPhones left today, there was a line out the door that was clocking in at, hold on let me check, oh a four hour wait.

When I asked if he had any idea when the feeding frenzy was going to stop, he sounded almost as though he was about to cry. "I thought it would be over by now." Poor guy.

I'll get my phone once the lunacy is over. That meshes nicely with my earlier plan of waiting to hear if anything really crappy started to happen with them or if the battery life became a problem.