the user interface of the iphone is a very polished and nice experience. most of the time. and of course in all the cases which get demo'ed by apple. but it also is a nice example how a too polished interface with too many expectations about what people want to do by definition also includes assumptions about what people do not want to do, and then effectively prohibits people from doing it.
for example, the iphone has a pretty decent pdf viewer, which is used in the email app and in safari. this is nice. but because apple has decided that the only way people can upload any data onto their iphones is itunes, i cannot upload pdf documents for viewing them. and of course i also cannot upload html or plain text documents. so while there is useful functionality being available on the device, i cannot use it because of too many assumptions about what users want to do, and how they have to do it. a more general mechanism would have been a generic file upload, but that would bypass itunes as the only means to access the phone, which probably is a very big no-no at apple.
another thing: since i am not the sultan of brunei, i do not use at&t for international calls, instead i have a third party provider with a free access number. i can store the access number in the contact app, but there is no way how i can then call up numbers from the contact app. and since there is no copy&paste, i cannot even copy it before calling the access number, and then paste it into the keyboard. i have to actually memorize it or write it down, which is kind of ridiculous.
another thing: sending sms to multiple recipients is impossible because it was probably too complicated to include this in the pseudo-chatting interface that is used in the sms app. again, with copy&paste i could at least avoid having to retype a complete message if i wanted to send it to more than one recipient. this is truly absurd. now i am waiting whether apple will fix this broken app, or whether skype will eventually notice that it could actually provide a web-based service for sending sms messages. i'd use it anytime over the crappy iphone sms app. hey skype, are you listening? don't you want my money?
that's the funny thing: with a little bit of added effort, some of the iphone apps could be made obsolete, the sms app could be substituted by something like a skype sms web service (which could even become a very convenient service if the iphone supported sms:
uris), the contacts app with a html-based address book, and so forth. all it would take would be something along the lines of google gears for the iphone...
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