Geeklawyer has been, so far as Japanese hotel broadband will allow, watching the 3G coverage with interest. As far as he can tell the iPhone 3G isn’t yet available in the UK in any meaningful way, with numbers being very restricted. While the 2G iPhone was always a non-starter because of the network speed the 3G had some interest.
From everything he reads the iPhone apps are cool and a reason to get it even if they do crash more often than Ruthie on a motorcycle on a wet road. Battery life looks a bit sucky even with wifi & Bluetooth turned off. But this will no doubt be cured by the Apple iPhone ecosystem: lots of 3rd party products like battery boosters etc etc. Location services seem to crash apps: again, an OS patch should fix this one day.
But there is a core problem that looks to Geeklawyer as if it may kill its value as a phone and as an object of Geeklawyer tech lust. The issue is one of control by Apple. It’s well known that Steve Jobs is an anally retentive megolomaniac with an ego problem. And if there is one thing Geeklawyer knows about, it is people with ego inflation problems. He sees a lot of them.
Jobs is so obsessed with the unimpeachable correctness of his own opinions and values that he cannot see the possibility of correct dissent. If Jobs says it is so then, fuck, that is the way it is because it is right. Combine this with a desire to control the product, the market and the users and you have a problem. This problem ruins the iPhone.
Jobs has NDAs in place that ruin the quality of the software because developers cannot share basic information that would improve the apps: so they crash. Users aren’t happy, nor are developers. And it seems that users want their phones to have functionality that threatens Steve’s business model with the phone companies, but fuck them, these competing apps are spiked anyway.
It is a shame Jobs doesn’t have terminal cancer, contrary to media reports. If he did perhaps after his death the company could move on to world domination by consent rather than the Bush “Guantanamo” style of suppression of enemies that Jobs seems to prefer.
Is Google’s Android a better long terms bet? Open hardware spec, sort of openish code (fully open later). Perhaps. Or perhaps the FSF, with its personality challenged nutjobs, led by the only man who could make Steve Jobs look appealing, have a point about code openness. God how it hurts to agree with a man Geeklawyer would like to skin alive with a plastic spoon and dip in salt.
If any UK developer wants Geeklawyer’s help referring Apple to the EU Competition Commissioner or challenging a licence he will be only too glad to assist at discounted rates. Fuck it, he may even stay sober during the trial. Well …
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