I’m now an official member of the iCult! I got an Apple iPhone on Friday evening and I activated it first thing after I got it (without any glitches at all, unlike some others). I think it’s one of the best products to come along from anyone in the technology industry in a long time. Maybe as long as I can remember. After using it all weekend, it’s obvious to me that it’s the product of very clear, focused thinking about mobile devices and lots of creativity and innovation. With the iPhone, Apple focused on making all the normal phone functions simple and, beyond that, I think time will show that they’ve significantly extended what most people can do with a cell phone. The thing is awesome!
So let there be no mistake: I love the iPhone. It’s here to stay as my primary phone. (and that’s saying a lot because I’m pretty demanding of the gadgets that I use, especially my cell phone.)
But being someone who spends some of his time thinking about and helping design user interfaces, I’ve come across a bunch of things that make me think Apple rushed at the end to get this thing out there. Here’s my list of the top 10 mistakes Apple made with the iPhone interface, as my first impressions from this weekend are fresh in my mind:
1. No contacts search. What was Apple thinking not including a contacts search feature on the iPhone? I have 700 contacts in Outlook and that’s only the start of the problem – some of my entries have last names and some don’t… plus I’ve got keywords stuffed into some of my contacts (for example, first name: Johnny plumber, last name: Appleseed). So when I’m looking for the plumber and I don’t remember his name because I call him once a year, I want to type in ‘plumber’. Come on Apple, gotta have contacts search!
Apple’s iPhone doesn’t let you search your contacts and then dial… it makes you browse through a long list by last name or first name first.
2. SMS should be one of the main apps. I don’t know about other people, but SMS is one of the main functions that I use one my phone. Having to click on an icon in the far upper left upper corner of the screen is a pain. And beyond that, it just feels to me like SMS should be a part of “Phone” and not a separate app. On the upside, Apple put the kind of search they should have put in Contacts in the SMS app! And the chat-like interface is, as Robert Scoble put it, addictive.
I use SMS a lot on my phone and I think it should be built-in to the phone function. The two icons remind me of a trite old Hindi movie plotline… two brothers, separated at birth, on opposite sides of the law, later reunited, their true identities revealed by their dieing mother. OK, that analog only worked up to a point. 
3. Adding stuff to the calendar takes extra clicks. When adding an event to my iPhone calendar, I have to click on the plus sign and then add the event details… including the start/end times! Is it too much to ask to make it so I can double click on a particular time on a day’s schedule and start entering event details with the time already set? Extra taps suck!
Apple’s iPhone doesn’t let you just add an item to your calendar by clicking on a time… Instead you have to click on the ‘+’ and then add the time from scratch. One extra step that involves a bunch of extra clicks. It’s almost worth it because Apple’s interface to set the time is so damn cool.
4. Rotating the screen doesn’t always work. Yeah, you can’t watch YouTube videos in portrait mode (for good reason!)… but that’s not what I’m talking about here. If the keyboard is up on the screen in, say, Safari (where rotating the screen is something that I do a lot), and then you rotate the screen, nothing happens. More than once, after the keyboard has come up, I’ll decide it would be easier to rotate the screen and do my typing. I rotate, nothing happens, I have to clear the keyboard, and then rotate again.
Sometimes iPhone’s screen doesn’t rotate when you expect it to
5. The Maps interface has at least one dead-end: In the iPhone’s Maps applet, if I mistakenly tap to get directions to or from a particular address, there’s no way for me to back out of that screen without actually entering some address and then turning off “directions” mode. Dead ends are bad. I got out of it just fine, but someone else somewhere won’t be using the Maps application as often.
Now what do I do??
6. No period on the virtual keyboard (without hitting shift). In the first few days of using the iPhone, I constantly found myself wanting a period button on the main keyboard. Typing out email addresses, web addresses, ummm, ending sentences. Unlike the apostrophe, which the iPhone’s smart predictive text technology takes care of (ie enter “im” and it’ll automatically make it “I’m”, enter “cant” and it’ll make it “can’t”), tapping out periods is unavoidable. And hitting the shift button, pressing period and then hitting shift again… well it sucks. Am I a stickler for punctuation? Do I just use too many periods? On a side note, Apple really needs to give a snappy marketing name to their predictive text technology so people can easily tell their friends about it… it’s one of the coolest things about the iPhone and “Trust the keyboard” and predictive text just don’t do it justice.
I wish there was a period on the iPhone main virtual keyboard.
7. Entering a lot of text in Safari doesn’t work too well: Sometimes, when I’m typing in a TEXTAREA form element in Safari, the keyboard doesn’t appear to be in predictive text mode… and then other times it does. And there’s also this bug where if you type onto a new line and then backspace back to the previous line, the text that was there on the new line, that I just got finished erasing, just stays there (ie it doesn’t get cleaned up), at least until I erase it… I call this the phantom letters problem. Finally, TEXTAREA’s are fixed in size and there’s no way to scroll through them if you type more text than what fits into one of those fixed size boxes and want to scroll back to edit something that’s moved out of view. (for anyone interested, the specific place where you could reproduce this behavior is in the mobile version of Gmail, m.gmail.com, while composing a message.)
Here I am entering a message in a TEXTAREA in Safari while the “phantom letters” problem is occuring.
8. No emoticons on the virtual keyboard: Apple someone stole the emoticons from your virtual keyboard! Seriously, it just seems like an Apple thing to do to include a few emoticons on the virtual keyboard.
9. Cursor control is a pain: Apart from the Safari TEXTAREA problems mentioned above, the magnifying glass thing used to position the cursor doesn’t work very well for me. I’m not clear on how to activate it. And if I’m somehow able to turn it on, getting it to exactly where I want to go is a pain. Maybe this one’s just me… or maybe not.
10. No character count in SMS application. The iPhone’s SMS program doesn’t tell me how many characters into a message I am. What’s more, it doesn’t appear to break up long messages into multiple messages like every other GSM phone I’ve ever used. Look, Apple, I agree with you… it’s silly that an SMS can only be 160 characters. But until you make AT&T fix it, them’s the breaks and the iPhone has to deal with it. (On a side note, I love Robert Scoble’s idea of making text messaging between iPhone’s free… unfortunately, I’m guessing that AT&T makes too much money off of text messaging for them to consider it.)
Apple’s iPhone doesn’t tell you how long your message is and, in my cursory tests, it doesn’t appear to break up long texts into multiple messages
So there you have it. Apple, get to work! I expect to see all of this addressed in the next software update… or at least the ones that you agree with me on.
Seriously, I’m not at all worried about these shortcomings. There will be software updates to the iPhone, and there will be websites that get changed to work better with the iPhone (Gmail Mobile, I’m looking at you! But that’ll be the subject of another post). They’re just getting started with this thing.
#1 you can drag down the right hand list of letters for quickly jumping to a letter
#5 if you have the keyboard up and you tap anywhere on the screen where it is dim, it closes the keyboard, then, if you tap the double arrows in the bottom left corner, it backs out.
#8 emoticons suck, and they better not put them in until there is an option to turn them off.
#9 you hold (for about 1 sec) just below the area you want magnified (i think it does it that way so you can read over top of your finger.)
Comment by sorahn — July 2, 2007 @ 6:02 am
Well, I expected this to be another list of dumb complaints that have been rehashed over and over again but.. Just about every item on this list makes sense, well, actually all of them do. Im guessing that these things will be sorted out with software updates. I’m on my windows machine right now, but I believe the calendar thing you mentioned is how iCal works, at least with the respect that if you have an item you have to give it a start and end time, which always kinda bugged me about how it works. I guess it would be nice if I had a nice ordered list of what im doing during the day, complete with how long each item will take, but then again that sounds like a robot so maybe not.
I haven’t really been able to use an iphone much, I sat in line for 3 hours and ended up being 26th in line, and my AT&T store only got 25. They said I could order one there, and id be “in line” when they ship more or whatever. They also said they wouldn’t charge my card until they ship it, and i see today that tomorrow they are going to charge my card, so hopefully that is good news.. Anyone have any more info as to when iphones will ship to those who ordered them in line on opening day? It sickens me to hear that they had some still in Apple stores on saturday, and the nearest one is 300 miles away..
Anyway, good list!
Comment by Josh — July 2, 2007 @ 6:04 am
[...] read more | digg story [...]
Pingback by Computer Net Daily » Top 10 mistakes in the Apple iPhone interface — July 2, 2007 @ 6:09 am
[...] YouTube Link to Article apple iphone Top 10 mistakes in the Apple iPhone interface » Posted at Rakesh Agrawal’s Blog on Monday, July 02, 2007 others). I think it’s one of the best products to come along from anyone in the technology industry in a long time. Maybe as long as I can remember … thinking about mobile devices and lots of creativity and innovation. With the iPhone, Apple focused … of the top 10 mistakes Apple made with the iPhone interface, as my first impressions View Entire Article » [...]
Pingback by University Update - Apple iPhone - Top 10 mistakes in the Apple iPhone interface — July 2, 2007 @ 6:57 am
[...] Yahoo Link to Article youtube Top 10 mistakes in the Apple iPhone interface » Posted at Rakesh Agrawal’s Blog on Monday, July 02, 2007 others). I think it’s one of the best products to come along from anyone in the technology industry in a long time. Maybe as long as I can remember. After using it all weekend, it’s obvious to me that it’s the product of very clear, focused thinking about mobile devices and lots of creativity and innovation View Entire Article » [...]
Pingback by University Update - YouTube - Top 10 mistakes in the Apple iPhone interface — July 2, 2007 @ 6:58 am
My phone is an old Nokia that can’t even recieve PXTs, I go online to see them
Also it dosen’t have a camera or any bells ‘n whistles. It just TXTs and rings and stores numbers, the latter, inefficiently. In my shirt pocket, it has to lie length-up & you can see much of the top – ITS BIG…..but it works. I’m well overdue for an update, by all accounts, but am quite happy to lug this brick around if I have to go through the situations I’m reading about on the net with the iPhone. I can wait till Christmas.
Comment by Digirati — July 2, 2007 @ 1:11 pm
Rakesh,
I have to ask, did you camp out waiting for the iPhone?
Good list by the way. Looks like this will could be your most popular blog post of the year.
Comment by Brent — July 2, 2007 @ 2:11 pm
No, I didn’t camp out. I had someone stand in line for me starting at about mid-day on Friday though. It turned out to be unnecessary tho.
Comment by Rakesh Agrawal — July 2, 2007 @ 4:10 pm
Great list! And, thanks to all the early adopters. I don’t mind at all waiting until the better and cheaper version comes out in the future.
Comment by Don — July 2, 2007 @ 7:29 pm
iCal on the mac allows you to double click a spot and it creates a 1 hour entry at that spot.
Comment by Nicholas Weaver — July 2, 2007 @ 7:31 pm
#1 seems like a deal breaker to me.
#6 is annoying too.
thanks for the list!
Comment by jp — July 2, 2007 @ 7:33 pm
Missed one: No cut and paste.
Comment by Darren — July 2, 2007 @ 7:37 pm
As noted elsewhere, clicking on the greyed out map returns from #5.
On #9 (cursor) you can either briefly tap anywhere in the text to quickly place the cursor, or hold down to bring up the magnifier.
Generally I would also say I almost never use SMS, I simply don’t see the point when I have email I can use (but then with other phones without email I never used SMS either).
Comment by Kendall Helmstetter Gelner — July 2, 2007 @ 7:37 pm
On #6: The vast majority of times I’ve entered a period, I want to enter a space next. And rather than doing “shift, period, shift, space”, you can just do “shift, period, space”, as that space will automatically return the keyboard to regular text input mode. Still annoying that you need to hit the first shift, but at least it’s only one.
Comment by Sander — July 2, 2007 @ 7:58 pm
Rakesh! What was that Hindi movie?
Comment by Ravilyn Sanders — July 2, 2007 @ 7:59 pm
>On a side note, Apple really needs to give a snappy marketing name to their predictive text technology so people can easily tell their friends about it… it’s one of the coolest things about the iPhone and “Trust the keyboard” and predictive text just don’t do it justice.
oh, how about “TX” (pronounced “Tee Ten”)?
Comment by Kelvin — July 2, 2007 @ 8:00 pm
I’d like to amend this list with a few issues:
11. Mail application does not have a search feature. I deal with hundreds of messages a day and I would love to be able to search for “Matt” or “Alert Notification.”
12. Mail application does not have the ability to create rules that will trigger different alarms. A simple high-priority and standard would suffice.
13. Mail application can only check IMAP accounts as frequently at 15 minutes. Would love to see lower values, i.e. 5 minutes.
14. Mail application should rotate when the iPhone is rotated.
15. OTA sync to WebCal type calendars or LDAP based directories.
Comment by Rob H — July 2, 2007 @ 8:09 pm
Apple Insider had to make changes to its web configuration just to accommodate the length of its extensive and excellent review of the iPhone: Apple’s iPhone: an initial (but in-depth) review. It goes into each function of the handset, looks at Apple’s approach to the mobile PC lacking copy/paste or any analog to files, folders and disks, and lists out what’s missing relative to more expensive phones on the market.
Comment by hans kohler — July 2, 2007 @ 8:19 pm
As for the SMS, the real solution would be to let you use iChat and not have to pay for messages. My guess, however, is that including iChat was a deal-breaker for AT&T, who makes a lot of money off of SMS…
As for the rest, just remember that Apple can update the software and make it do more in the future.
Comment by Rob — July 2, 2007 @ 8:22 pm
Horrible font. click looks like something else.
Comment by anonymous — July 2, 2007 @ 8:24 pm
Neither Apple nor AT&T can do anything about the 160-character limit on SMS. That limit is part of the GSM standard. They can’t change it without violating the standard.
Comment by TimK — July 2, 2007 @ 8:38 pm
I think what number 20 is saying is that Adding stuff to the calendar takes extra dicks.
Comment by extra dicks — July 2, 2007 @ 8:42 pm
The Maps UI is indeed very bad. I too got into this dead-end in my first day of use. Also, common tasks (like bookmarking, recalling previous searches) aren’t very intuitive. The buttons are strange (what does this button with an up and down arrow mean?)
Zooming in and out in the Maps UI is clunky and dangerous. Try it. When zooming out with your fingers slipping off the map area it’s easy to get it to violently drag the map off in some direction which you didn’t intend.
I also hate the playlist viewer when playing a playlist in iPod mode. Why can I not see the items of the playlist as I’m playing? Why does this huge screen give me LESS information about the song/podcast I am playing than I get on my Nano? Not only does it show me an extremely cut off display of the title, but I can’t see the description. Why, when playing a playlist in landscape do I get thrown into Cover Flow of my albums? Shouldn’t I get a Cover Flow of entries in my playlist? (Should I get into Cover Flow at all unless I’m looking at my Albums?)
Also, why does it play only the audio when playing a video podcast from a playlist or from the podcast menu. The only way to play video podcasts as video is from the Videos menu.
Fast forwarding/rewinding a video is a pain, and very difficult to rewind just a few seconds if you miss something. The resolution when holding and dragging is very low when the video is of any length. There should be some way to drag rewind/forward in a variable amount based on drag speed or something.
Comment by Dave — July 2, 2007 @ 8:43 pm
These are all good points. I have a couple of issues too. Regarding issue #2 – I would rather be able to place arbitrary icons onto the bottom bar than have Apple pick which ones should go there. For example: you want SMS there and I never use SMS because I feel that Text Messaging is kind of a rip off because of how much it costs. I’d rather use email.
Also, *everything* should rotate all the time. Even the YouTube videos should rotate. I hate having to guess when it will rotate and when it won’t.
Finally, I have noticed that the performance when using the keyboard to type into an HTML form in Safari is inversely proportional to the amount of data on the page. For large pages such as the comments on a digg.com article, the typing performance is unacceptable.
Good list. Some of the things you mention I hadn’t seen because I only have a small number of contacts and don’t really use iCal very much, but I agree with everything you said for the most part.
Comment by Brant Sears — July 2, 2007 @ 8:45 pm
I think you should also iclude input language although I speak English I would like to be able to type in other languages I could see this virtual keyboard being big in china if it can be modified.
Comment by Rafa — July 2, 2007 @ 8:45 pm
As a sysadmin at an ISP, I’m glad iPhone can’t check mail more often than is courteous to the mail system.
Comment by Ryan — July 2, 2007 @ 9:05 pm
700 and I’ll bet you never call more than 50 of them
Comment by Kevin — July 2, 2007 @ 9:14 pm
First read the very first reply. It cuts your list of complaints in half!!!
Second…and lets get this straight…improvements will be made….the software will get better…and thats the good news…eveything you complained about….is fixable quite easily by Apple in the software.
So you got a v1.0 phone….Send this list to Apple (well remove the ones that you know have answers on how to do) and lets see. I suspect they will be updating the phones in the near future.
I do like the .com button….:) that is sweet.
Comment by Bart — July 2, 2007 @ 9:14 pm
Another UI gaffe: try entering a repeating monthly event that occurs on the second Wednesday of each month. Can’t be done.
Comment by Jon — July 2, 2007 @ 9:17 pm
I agree that they should come up with a marketing name for the tying
prediction software.
I suggest DeForce.
Not as in “tour de force”, but as in “trust de force”.
Comment by pohl — July 2, 2007 @ 9:24 pm
Thanks for testing and ironing out the wrinkles with this device before it hits our shores America!
Comment by CrackedButter — July 2, 2007 @ 9:30 pm
For number 6, did you try hitting space bar twice? I don’t have an iPhone but my cell phone adds a period when I double space.
Comment by Matthew — July 2, 2007 @ 10:09 pm
Comment #1 is wide off the mark (for point 1 anyway). The complaints ask for a search feature, what #1 tells us about is a shrtcut feature to get quickly to a part of the alphabet. If you have comments in the name, or refer to different people by first, middle or last names, you want to be able to search for any of those (just like in Address Book). As the article states, if you list someone as John plumber johnson, I DON´T want to look him up by sliding down to “J” ´caus I can´t remember his name, I just list everyone I need to be able to contact and now I want to call the plumber. His name happens to be John.
Makes sense (to me anyway) as this is exactly the point of electronic address books, being able to fill them with everyone you might need to contact, for whatever reason, and then have the machine sort it out!
Comment by ari — July 2, 2007 @ 10:43 pm
Have you filled bug reports for all of these? I hear the ESP implants in the iPhone team aren’t ready yet, so they probably haven’t yet read your mind and discovered the problems you’re having.
Comment by Wade Tregaskis — July 2, 2007 @ 10:59 pm
Item #2 – I’m not sure how SMS could be more “main” than the upper-left corner of the icon set. What you’re calling the “main” apps have the same-size icons as the others; what does the position matter? Also, you can initiate a text message from the Phone app (bring up a contact’s details and “text message” is a great big button).
Comment by Hamilton Lovecraft — July 2, 2007 @ 11:37 pm
Wade: I betcha the Apple team is already well aware of at least some of these items. And if not, hopefully since this was linked to from Slashdot it’ll get their attention.
Comment by rakesh — July 2, 2007 @ 11:38 pm
More? No Bluetooth A2DP – can’t use wireless stereo headphones. Why?????
Comment by Burt Janz — July 2, 2007 @ 11:42 pm
re #1 – Perhaps you can change his entry to Plumber John / Johnson instead of John Plumber / Johnson.
Alternatively, you could create a group of contacts like these through your address book software and access it through iPhone’s groups features.
Comment by DanD — July 3, 2007 @ 12:19 am
I have been waiting to read something about iPhone. I am a mobile buff and I heard we won’t be receiving any of these in India before year end. Your list is great and I now I know what to look for when the phone is finally available in India. I use a Moto Ming as of now and comparing it with what I read about iPhone, I think I made an intelligent choice (except for the “i” value).
Would still wait for the phone!
Comment by Shashank Rana — July 3, 2007 @ 12:29 am
@37
No A2DP?! WHAT?! I thought that was one of the features!
I for one will NOT be getting an iPhone ever unless it supports A2DP. How could they skip it?
Can anyone confirm or deny the presence of A2DP functionality?
Comment by machee — July 3, 2007 @ 12:53 am
You don’t have to go to two screens to click period, just slide your finger from the .?123 button to the period, and that’s it!
Comment by Daniel Jimenez — July 3, 2007 @ 2:05 am
#7 — write up a bug at developer.apple.com with the reproducibility info
Comment by anonymous coward — July 3, 2007 @ 2:09 am
Great list. Your observations are dead on. Safari is especially frustrating, and I’ve had trouble with the predictive text working in SMS too.
The placement of the buttons on the dashboard is inconsistent. Media apps like YouTube are far away from iPod. SMS is no where near phone and email. And I really wish you could call up your contacts from the dashboard, without having to click Phone or Email first.
One addition: The inconsistent placement of “Done” “Save” and “Back” functionality in different apps. I’m always searching for the correct button, resulting in no muscle memory and speed limits.
PS: Many, many thanks to Daniel Jimenez for the .?123 slide tip — I didn’t know about that one.
Comment by Charles — July 3, 2007 @ 3:07 am
Oooooohh, I got an iPhone and it’s not exactly perfect… Ooooooohhh, I wish my iPhone keyboard had emoticons.
Get a life, I mean seriously – you’ve got an iPhone. It’s not as if you are sitting in a mud hut somewhere in the desert wondering where your next meal is going to come from. Put your life into perspective, and devote your blogging time to improving the living conditions for the millions of poor and starving of the world.
And yes, I live in a country that’s looking forward to another 6-12 month wait before the iPhone launches and I’m just extremely jealous.
So stop your whinging, at least you got one.
Comment by What Ever — July 3, 2007 @ 3:56 am
“So stop your whinging, at least you got one.”
Amen brother. Well said!
Comment by Ged — July 3, 2007 @ 4:15 am
I don’t have an IPhone so I haven’t been able to play but based on the what i’ve seen of the keyboard I don’t think it’s going to be easy to enter strong passwords. This could cause a security issue when banks put out more mobile sites, or an inconvience when they require strong passwords.
Comment by Shawn McCollum — July 3, 2007 @ 4:21 am
good post but, as it’s been said, you can get out of the driving directions mode of google maps pretty easily without quitting the app.
also, i’ve found that if predictive text isnt working, bring up the magnifying glass (just touch and hold for a sec on the text) on what you’re typing and it usually causes predictive text to start working.
i really wish the keyboard would rotate when it’s up. that is my main gripe with the phone (other than the few application crashes i’ve had)
Comment by thejordan — July 3, 2007 @ 4:41 am
Iphone sales rocks…
checkout the queue to get Iphone…
http://www.toondoo.com/View.toon?param=30793
Arun.
Comment by arun — July 3, 2007 @ 6:12 am
I am a SysAdmin as well, of email clusters no less. If your servers can not handle more frequent connections than 15 minutes then perhaps it’s time for an upgrade. =)
Comment by RobH — July 3, 2007 @ 11:24 am
One other small, niggling little issue that I’ve noticed – hopefully others will agree – there are NO lights on this thing AT ALL when it is asleep, a fact which I find particularly annoying. I got very used to my BlackBerry having a variable LED that was green if I had no messages or missed calls, but would vary to amber to alert me if I did. iPhone will not tell you anything if you have a message unless you wake it up…which means you have to find it in the dark (if you live with others and do not wish to wake them by turning on lights). That was the secondary function of the BlackBerry’s LED. If I forgot to put it on the charger, the LED acted as a beacon of sorts.
Then again, I don’t suppose forgetting to feed the iPhone some power every night is really an option…
Comment by psp — July 3, 2007 @ 11:44 am
I too have been compiling a list, which I’d be more than happy to send to you. Just send me an email letting me know if you want to see it.
Comment by Liz — July 3, 2007 @ 1:58 pm
Ok, well I guess you can’t see my email address, so I’ll just post it the old fashioned way.
1. Can’t add SMTP servers in Mail
2. CAN’T USE iCHAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
3. Can’t edit contact groups
4. Can’t switch mail accounts if one isn’t working
5. Can’t edit weather locations order
6. Synching my phone to my laptop using bluetooth does nothing
7. Can’t ever find other devices using bluetooth
8. Can’t check email in increments less than 15 minutes
–All for now!
Comment by Liz — July 3, 2007 @ 2:02 pm
This is a good list, although as some people pointed out, you either learn your way around them or Apple will (without a doubt) be releasing updates soon.
I’m satisfied with the iphone but something does get on my nerves: SMS should be allowed to be rotated. Am I the only one who realizes the typing gets SO much easier in Safari when you’re entering text in landscape mode?? Plus, it feels so natural holding the phone that way while typing anyways..
Comment by h0ax — July 3, 2007 @ 2:09 pm
Oh quit your complaining….
Comment by Dan — July 3, 2007 @ 3:51 pm
A2DP is supported by the bluetooth chipset in the iPhone, however, there is currently no drivers for A2DP devices in the iPhone software.
You can change mail accounts if you press theback button in the upper left hand side of the sceen. You will have to press it up to two times to get to the accounts page.
I would like a setting to send all mail from one out going account.
Great list all of my main issues are covered in this list. Keep up the good work
Comment by daveg1701 — July 3, 2007 @ 6:05 pm
#1 missing is close to a dealbreaker for me. I have over a thousand contacts and constantly use search on my Palm as well as in Outlook to find people.
Comment by CyberNorris — July 3, 2007 @ 8:42 pm
@TimK #21: Yes the 160 char limit is part of the GSM standard, but that very standard also allows for what’s called multi-part messages that allows messages of more than 160 chars to be sent. At the network side it’s recognised as individual messages and is usually charged as such. However GSM mobiles, on receiving the message, can piece it back together. Most mobiles made after 2000 or so can receive multi-part messages and most made after 2004 or so can send/receive multi-part messages.
Comment by James Pole — July 3, 2007 @ 9:14 pm
[...] APPLE FUD: Top 10 mistakes in the Apple iPhone interface It’s not perfect! [...]
Pingback by links for 2007-07-03 « Clint’s blog — July 3, 2007 @ 10:23 pm
[...] iPhone, Anticipazioni, cellulari, Curiosità, Telefonia Mobile, Passionemobile, Apple. trackback Macitynet segnala i dieci errori di Apple nell’interfaccia di iPhone…. Vi sietedimenticati di mettere nel vostro nuovo progetto di telefono cellulare un tasto per rispondere alle email in un colpo solo? Se siete Nokia, Samsung o Motorola, probabilmente dovrete progettare un nuovo modello, magari aggiungendo una vocale alla fine del nome (da Nokia E61 a Nokia E61i, per dire) per rimediare allo sbaglio. Con l’iPhone no. Processore potente, schermo tutto touch, basta un aggiornamento software e tutto si può fare. [...]
Pingback by I dieci errori di Apple nell’interfaccia di iPhone? « P@ssioneMobile — July 4, 2007 @ 6:14 am
Don’t forget that the headphone jack does not fit most head-phones without an adapter which they don’t provide…but I love it. It is the best phone, best handheld I have every used. Well worth the wait – I’ll never go back…
Oh, and I second the need for chat – I loved how blackberry had gtalk and yahoo IM, and email push – when will that be available…remember, att also offers that on blackberrys so I think they could offer it here. I think apple is holding off so they have a way to create new buzz after the initial wears off. Great phone!!
Comment by BenS — July 4, 2007 @ 9:07 pm
re. #55:
Hardware support for A2DP without usable drivers is like having an air conditioning compressor in your car without a way to turn it on: it sucks power from the system without providing any satisfaction. Granted, the power consumption may be measured in tenths of a microwatt when bluetooth is enabled, but it *is* a power drain nonetheless.
As an embedded systems programmer (Linux – 6 years at least, Palm OS, WinCE, and other proprietary systems) I wonder what was behind the decision to ship the hardware without support for it in the OS. The additional hardware design work, testing, chip cost… it seems to be a waste of time and money to *not* enable it in “first ship”.
“We can turn it on later” is not a satisfactory answer, and seems to give credence to the argument that the iPhone was “shipped before complete”.
I really wanted to like the iPhone. Really. I had the cash put aside, and was ready to dump my Blackberry Pearl (and TMO) for the iPhone. But, until I see the full feature set available and some of the stupid omissions fixed (no search???), I’ll wait.
Comment by Burt — July 5, 2007 @ 4:54 pm
The biggest drawback IMO is the lack of a redial feature. If I want to redial a number I called recently assuming the phone is in sleep mode, I have to 1) press the button at the top 2) enter my password (ok, that’s optional) 3) click phone 4) hit Recents 5) Click on my number. On my Cingular 8125 I simply have to turn the phone on, enter password and click Yes twice. Redialing is a VERY BASIC function that all phones should have.
Comment by JustinH — July 5, 2007 @ 8:01 pm
C’mon Apple !
Copy & Paste – Copy & Paste -Copy & Paste -Copy & Paste -Copy & Paste -Copy & Paste -Copy & Paste -Copy & Paste -Copy & Paste -Copy & Paste -!!!!!!!!!!!
AND MORE VOLUME SO YOU CAN HEAR THE RINGER AND ALARMS FROM THE OTHER SIDE OF THE ROOM !
We don’t have it teathered to our bodies all the time… “….everyone quiet down, I think my phone is ringing !’…. jeesh”
Comment by Man Parrish — July 6, 2007 @ 4:22 am
[...] Top 10 Apple iPhone interface mistakes: Rakesh Agrawal [...]
Pingback by Zatz Not Funny!»Blog Archive » Digital Media Bytes — July 6, 2007 @ 11:00 am
Regarding the contacts search problem #1, when you sync groups from the address book on a Mac (or subgroups from Outlook on a PC), do you have any access to those subsets on the iPhone?
I’ve been preparing my data for the iPhone and so made several groups in the address book that I would want on the iPhone. i.e. iPhone (all phone contacts), and then smaller groups, Friends, Family, Freqs, Biz (for places I call to order food n stuff).
Is there any way in contacts to view a particular sublist at a time as it was synced or do all the groups only flow into the one long list. I know that you can make a list of FAVs on the iPhone but that’s not what I’m talking about. It’s more like a playlist thing.
Comment by Paul — July 6, 2007 @ 5:12 pm
@Justin #62
You CAN redial the last contact or # you called by hitting the ‘Phone’ icon, hitting the ‘Keypad’ icon (if it’s not already selected), then pressing the ‘Call’ icon. The last call you made will have the contact name and # at the top of the screen. Press ‘Call’ again and… there you go. Very, very quick and easy once you do it a few times.
Comment by Jake — July 6, 2007 @ 6:20 pm
[...] On the middle path here is a post from Rakesh Agrawal. Rakesh loves his iPhone, but has some issues with some of the features and functions on the iPhone. Post Here Swap This These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages. [...]
Pingback by Swap Blog » Blog Archive » iPhone love — July 6, 2007 @ 6:32 pm
I agree that there are, surprisingly, volume issues. This seems to be the most basic problem in need of improvement. The other two biggies for me are 1) that you cannot have multiple text message recipients and 2) the inability to type in landscape mode for all applications (it is much easier.)
Comment by David — July 8, 2007 @ 6:42 am
You should be guilt ridden. do you know how many people live on less than 1 dollar a day? you and your IPHONE. I think the number one thing wrong with the iphone is that IT EXISTS. You shouldnt be spending your dollars on an IPHONE, but on a subscription to ode magazine! BAH!
Comment by chumpu — July 11, 2007 @ 6:19 am
Big deal. The biggest thing is the contacts search. Well just looks for god’s sake. Really if you’ve got an iPhone you shouldn’t be complaining about such minute details.
Comment by Liz — July 12, 2007 @ 4:40 am
Good to know Irv!!! Thanks!
Most of the ten I agree with, though some seem petty,
but here’s a HUGE one:
***iCal doesn’t do “second tuesday of every month” type repetition!!!***
(AFAIK)
What the heck, Palm has had this right for years. I mean, who does the same numeric day of every month, except for “the first” and maybe “the 15th” as a rounded off middle…
Comment by kirkjerk — July 15, 2007 @ 5:25 pm
Oops, someone already pointed out the “second tuesday” issue.
I for one HATE HATE HATE the predictive text feature. Its miss rate is too high and its hit rate too low for me to use it.
I mean, sometimes I want to type “w/” for with.
It gets auto-”corrected” to “a/”
Screw that noise. Firefox-style spelling correction is much more clean.
Comment by kirkjerk — July 15, 2007 @ 5:32 pm
Do you type on iPhone with ten fingers? Is it necessary to simulate QWERTY keyboard layout on virtual keyboard? I suppose both answers are NO.
The big space bar is just a waste of space.
You don’t use your left and right thumbs to press the space bar. It can be just a small button, giving space a few frequently used characters like dot and comma etc. With such refinement, around 6 more buttons can be added, though more is not necessarily better. I am pretty there are enough statistic data to assist better virtual keyboard layout design, picking right candidates of characters for extra buttons good for speeding SMS and Email content, in different languages.
Comment by Andy Wong — July 30, 2007 @ 4:26 am
Congratulations on getting picked up on BBspot today…
http://www.bbspot.com/News/BBloopers/2007/08/2889.php?from=rss
Comment by Jim — August 2, 2007 @ 8:10 pm
How do you turn off predictive text? I write most email and text messages in Filipino and predictive text substitutes every other word with something else. It’s so annoying.
Comment by Albert Ayala — August 3, 2007 @ 11:13 pm
[...] Mistakes in the iPhone Interface. Rakesh writes “I love the iPhone. It ’s here to stay as my primary cell phone. But I’ve come across a bunch of things that make me think Apple rushed at the end to get this thing out there. Here’s my list of the top 10 mistakes Apple made with the iPhone interface.” [...]
Pingback by » iPhone Interest Still Going Strong — September 4, 2007 @ 9:43 pm
Rakesh,
Good constructive criticism. It’s a shame that it is not seen as such by some folks.
-Rakesh (Yup, that’s my name too)
Comment by Rakesh — May 24, 2008 @ 8:25 am