I Think, Therefore I Rant!

The FTC has released new guidelines for advertisers. One of those guidelines is that advertisers of diet products cannot have a famous (and formerly fat) person stand there and tell you that they lost 48 pounds in 48 days and you can to if you will just give them $480. Most people understand that they only thing that will lose weight in those schemes is your wallet. It is good for the FTC to demand a bit of realism there.

The FTC also says they will restrict bloggers from talking about products where they received the product or service as a gift in order to elicit the blogger’s review (favorable or unfavorable). There are some services out there that will help you get free products as long as you talk about them on your blog. I think these sites and services will be out of business soon.  

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The iPhone is the best phone that I have ever owned. It has a few things that I hate though.

First, I hate the AT&T network. I have used T-Mobile, Sprint, and Verizon in the past (as well as a pre-cursor to Verizon – Cellular One and a pre-cursor to AT&T – Ameritech). I have owned a cell phone (used to call it a car phone) since 1990. I have never had so many dropped phone calls when I am sitting in one location and the person I am talking to is in one location. AT&T has to have the worst network in the USA.

The other big complaint about the iPhone is the hysteria around it. Yes, I have a good number of apps that I use to do my job or get through my day. However, I don’t love the apps. To me, a phone should have this stuff just because it can. I am a bit tired of the “coolest app” conversation that inevitably happens when I talk to another iPhone user (esp. one that doesn’t use it for work related reasons).  

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I am not a big fan of federal government spending.  There are few times when I think that the government can do a more effective job of spending than my local municipalities where they are far more accessible to my influence.  However, the current economy definitely needs a kick-in-the-butt and so I supported the stimulus bill (now called “Economic Stimulus Package Act of 2008“) if it really is going to be used for getting things done on a local level.

I wrote about this back in February in my article “38 ways to fill the stimulus bill with pork and save our economy“.  I still question that the stimulus is being adequately implemented but an article in the Sunday edition of the Cincinnati Enquirer gives me some hope.  This is exactly what we should do as a stimulus – create hundreds of small projects that will get people in the local communities working.  I only hope that most of the jobs the article cites were contractors as opposed to government workers.  As contractors, this will insure that these entrepreneurs stay in business and can augment this public money with some private sector jobs and keep these workers on their payroll.  

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There is an article in the Wall Street Journal that has AT&T whining about the cost of supporting the data plans for the iPhone.  Seems that with all of the really cool apps that the iPhone has, they tend to load up on the data!  No surprise, the quality of the apps is excellent (check out this site that reviews iPhone apps)

Too bad!  The iPhone is by far the coolest product in the mobile world. It has also set the standard for all other phone developers and networks to aspire to.  Because of this, there is no way that we are going to roll back time and start to use a less flexible and featured product.

AT&T may not like it but Apple and it’s iPhone have given them first mover advantage in mobile computers.  Everyone else is trying to play catch up.  If AT&T screws it up, the competition will be all over them.  

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I read a lot of RSS feeds for work, blogging, and general interest.  I used to use Google Reader for most of this before I had my iPhone.  When the iPhone came out though I found that the iPhone reader was very difficult for me to read without my reading glasses (I have reached that point in life when I need to keep reading glasses close when I am going to do serious reading).  When I read feeds on my laptop, I don’t mind using my glasses but if I am away from the computer and just trying to catch a quick update, reading glasses are a pain to deal with.

Since the Reader on the iPhone wouldn’t let me change fonts, I went with another service, Newsgator, for my needs.  This required me to use their desktop app (or web app) as well.  I still prefered Google’s Reader but the entire package put me ahead.  

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By all accounts, save one, Apple’s iPhone has been an amazing success. When you factor

• the number of competitors in the marketplace,
• Apple as a relative newcomer to the cell phone market,
• the strict relationship with only one carrier

it is amazing that the iPhone has had such a strong impact on the revenue of Apple as well as the sales of other phones.

The one area that Apple really needs to develop is the developer network. While the App Store is the best method yet developed for delivering software to a cell phone, it does not appear that it is a great commercial success for many of its developers.  The vast majority of the apps on the store are priced so cheaply (or free) that it is not likely that they will return a profit to their developers.  

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I tend to agree with The Fishbowl that it would be great to have a try-before-you-buy at the Apple iPhone store.  It would help alleviate the fear factor of hitting BUY when looking for an application for the phone.

I think the only saving grace to not having this capability is the very easy comments feature in the store.  A few weeks ago, when the iPhone was first coming out, it was all a crapshoot as to the quality of the software.  Now that every application has a couple dozen comments, the cream easily floats to the top.

I also wish that Apple would require their vendors to have a better website to explain the apps.  In some cases, the sites are incredibly bare and almost non-existent.

I am done with this topic for now but I reserve the right to rant more on it someday.  

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Yes, I know that I just praised the iPhone from Apple as being a great phone.  In fact, it is the best phone that I have ever owned and I have had quite a few.

However, the management of application icons leaves a lot to be desired. 

First of all, it is not possible to name the different screens.  So while it is possible to congregate all of your games onto a particular screen, there is no way to name this screen and jump instantly to it.

Second, whenever you update an application to its next revision (and at this early stage, this happens a lot) the icon will jump back to the earliest possible spot.  This means that when you do an update, the icon forgets where you first put it (as in the games screen described above) and sticks it on the very first screen of the phone.  If there are no more open spots on that first screen, it puts it on the second screen (and so on).  This makes it tedious to reorganize your applications as developers work out bugs in their early versions.  

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I own a first generation iPhone. While I have considered buying a new 3G version, I really don’t know why I should spend more money. I am very happy with the speed of my present phone as it does email and newsfeeds plenty fast.

The really great thing about the new operating system of the phone is the cool apps that are starting to come out. For instance, it has a FREE Wordpress management tool and I am using it to write this column.

I will write more about my iPhone in the coming days. Subscribe to my feed to follow the discussion.

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