I just started using an iPhone...
... and boy does it make me miss my Nokia dumb-phone. How do I hate Apple? Let me count the ways!
One is for the way they don't let me use any SMS tones except for the half-dozen too-long, too-loud ones they've included.
Two is for the way they play a fixed sound effect every time you send an SMS. You can't turn it off, and you can't change it. Who the hell needs a sound effect to tell them they just sent a message anyway? Did they sleep through the part where they typed it in on that atrocious onscreen keyboard and hit "send"?
Three is for the way you can't turn off the camera click without turning off all sounds. Actually, most of my current complaints are about sounds. For someone who essentially gave the portable digital music player a much-needed kick in the rear, Apple really doesn't get it when it comes to customizing sounds.
Four is for the fact that I can't just pick any random mp3 from my collection to be a ringtone. Nokia was letting me do that five or more years ago. But then, Nokia didn't have a nice convenient micropayment cash cow like the iTunes Music Store to think about.
Five is for the fact that ringing and SMS tones don't have independent volume controls. Again, something Nokia let me do way back in the stone age.
Six is for the fact that outgoing SMS messages are on the right side of the screen. Maybe it's just me, but I read from left to right, and I'm used to seeing call-and-response scripts that have the call on the left and the response on the right, so I expect the stuff I said to be on the left. I have to imagine that whatever idiot designed this UI was used to that, too, and just decided to subvert the dominant paradigm because that's just what hipper-than-thou douchebags do.
Seven is for the fact that all the configuration options are in the "settings" app instead of in the application they actually belong to. Except for the ones that aren't. (Though that part is mostly the fault of third-party app developers who actually understand modern UI design.) And the SMS sound settings, such as they are, are in the "sounds" category in the "settings" app, not in the "messages" category where they by all rights belong. If Apple had ever heard of multitasking, this wouldn't be as big a pain in the ass as it is.
Eight is for the fact that I can't tie it to more than one computer at once. I suppose if I had an all-powerful MacBook I'd only need one computer, but since I'm not sufficiently evolved to wear black turtlenecks everywhere I go, I actually have three computers that I use on a regular basis. It'd be nice if I could sync with all three of them.
Nine is for Nokia PCSuite. I suppose it's not Apple's fault that Nokia is just so awesome, but it'd be nice if Apple had some sort of desktop application that'd let me type my text messages and appointment text and whatnot on a real keyboard when I happen to have one handy. Of course, being Apple, they'd make me type it with the mouse while using only the left button, and the key labels on the virtual keyboard would only appear if I put the mouse over them, and they'd fade in slowly. And they'd all be gray on gray. So I guess I should be happy with what I've got, which is nothing.
Ten is a more general smartphone gripe: Because I don't use it primarily as a phone, I almost always need to first start the "phone" app, then find the person who I want to call in the phone book, then pick which number to use for them. All while looking at the screen, because there's no real keyboard on the thing. With the Nokia, I could flip it open and dial any of 7 favorite numbers without ever even looking at the phone. What's the point of having handsfree in the truck if I can get into a wreck before I even get the phone dialed? (Yes, I know this is mitigated by voice dialing. I'll see how that works, then see how it works with the handsfree. I might yet retract this gripe.)
And this is after just using it for a weekend. I haven't even used half the features yet, but I'm sure they're just as crippledsimple as the rest of it.
One is for the way they don't let me use any SMS tones except for the half-dozen too-long, too-loud ones they've included.
Two is for the way they play a fixed sound effect every time you send an SMS. You can't turn it off, and you can't change it. Who the hell needs a sound effect to tell them they just sent a message anyway? Did they sleep through the part where they typed it in on that atrocious onscreen keyboard and hit "send"?
Three is for the way you can't turn off the camera click without turning off all sounds. Actually, most of my current complaints are about sounds. For someone who essentially gave the portable digital music player a much-needed kick in the rear, Apple really doesn't get it when it comes to customizing sounds.
Four is for the fact that I can't just pick any random mp3 from my collection to be a ringtone. Nokia was letting me do that five or more years ago. But then, Nokia didn't have a nice convenient micropayment cash cow like the iTunes Music Store to think about.
Five is for the fact that ringing and SMS tones don't have independent volume controls. Again, something Nokia let me do way back in the stone age.
Six is for the fact that outgoing SMS messages are on the right side of the screen. Maybe it's just me, but I read from left to right, and I'm used to seeing call-and-response scripts that have the call on the left and the response on the right, so I expect the stuff I said to be on the left. I have to imagine that whatever idiot designed this UI was used to that, too, and just decided to subvert the dominant paradigm because that's just what hipper-than-thou douchebags do.
Seven is for the fact that all the configuration options are in the "settings" app instead of in the application they actually belong to. Except for the ones that aren't. (Though that part is mostly the fault of third-party app developers who actually understand modern UI design.) And the SMS sound settings, such as they are, are in the "sounds" category in the "settings" app, not in the "messages" category where they by all rights belong. If Apple had ever heard of multitasking, this wouldn't be as big a pain in the ass as it is.
Eight is for the fact that I can't tie it to more than one computer at once. I suppose if I had an all-powerful MacBook I'd only need one computer, but since I'm not sufficiently evolved to wear black turtlenecks everywhere I go, I actually have three computers that I use on a regular basis. It'd be nice if I could sync with all three of them.
Nine is for Nokia PCSuite. I suppose it's not Apple's fault that Nokia is just so awesome, but it'd be nice if Apple had some sort of desktop application that'd let me type my text messages and appointment text and whatnot on a real keyboard when I happen to have one handy. Of course, being Apple, they'd make me type it with the mouse while using only the left button, and the key labels on the virtual keyboard would only appear if I put the mouse over them, and they'd fade in slowly. And they'd all be gray on gray. So I guess I should be happy with what I've got, which is nothing.
Ten is a more general smartphone gripe: Because I don't use it primarily as a phone, I almost always need to first start the "phone" app, then find the person who I want to call in the phone book, then pick which number to use for them. All while looking at the screen, because there's no real keyboard on the thing. With the Nokia, I could flip it open and dial any of 7 favorite numbers without ever even looking at the phone. What's the point of having handsfree in the truck if I can get into a wreck before I even get the phone dialed? (Yes, I know this is mitigated by voice dialing. I'll see how that works, then see how it works with the handsfree. I might yet retract this gripe.)
And this is after just using it for a weekend. I haven't even used half the features yet, but I'm sure they're just as crippledsimple as the rest of it.