I’m an edge user of mobile devices. I use feature the average user doesn’t know exists. I try to keep that in mind when looking at new devices but I’m still astounded at manufacturers who throw in a half implemented feature. While playing with my mom’s new iPhone, I got a bit of the techno lust. It’s a beautiful gadget and much of it is really intuitive. So I started thinking about whether I could live with the limitations (no 3g, no tethering, etc.). So I took her phone and tried stuff. Stuff that my Blackjack does well and stuff that it does poorly but acceptably, to see how the iPhone compares.

I learned that despite it’s rounded corners, the iPhone still has some rough edges. There’s an iPhone bug when used with Microsoft’s address book. The office phone number refused to sync. I know how many folks use MS address book? Well, my mom for one, she’s moving from paper and Outlooks seems like overkill.

No native Bluetooth support for music. Bluetooth headsets work great for the phone functions but you can’t listen to music with either a mono or a stereo headset. (I tried both). There’s a workaround, but the music keeps playing through the phone’s speaker so why bother. Also there are reports that iPod add-ons like iMuffs will work but should we really have to pay extra for stereo Bluetooth?

Yes I’m picking on Apple a little bit but EVERY phone manufacturer seems to have some feature that is poorly implemented. “Converged Device” doesn’t mean shove it all in the same case and don’t worry if things don’t work together. I’m still not sure why this so hard. Ask a few of us what we would like to see in a device. For example, There are tons of requests for mono music playback via Bluetooth. Why? Not quality, accessibility. Sometimes you just want a little unobtrusive background music. But no one seems to get that. Not HP, not Samsung, not Apple.

The best comparison I have is that the iPhone is like Lindsay Lohan. It’s beautiful. It’s talented and yet it may never live up to all of it’s potential. Perhaps as it matures, we’ll see that it can move beyond it’s current issues to be something really special, not just the attractive thing of the moment.

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