iPhone Thoughts

First thing that came to mind "How to Cut and Paste" by DJ Yoda (URL). WTF Apple? Granted I do come from multigenerational sidekick and palm and windows CE device use, I would expect a pocket machine as slick on the surface to be as slick under the hood.

So I went online and searched for ways to (what I learned was named...) "Jailbreak" my iPhone. This means that I would be able to install anything I want and develop my own applications if I damn well pleased thank you very much. Jailbreaking and developing for the iPhone is essentially like the first versions of voice recognition on the Mac. To the average or even advanced user of Apple products, creating scripts and workflows with voice command functionality was a step into the land of C#. And Java. And a whole slew of other languages like Python and AJAX and markup like XML and CSS and XHTML etc. So in this open source world I await the consumer to provide me with a wish-list of applications and functions that will bring the iPhone into the realm of wise purchase decision. Or I can learn all those languages above (I know some of them already). Or I can wait for Apple themselves to provide me with simple functions like cutting and pasting and selecting text, among other seemingly simple functions I took for granted from release 1 of the sidekick os...

Speaking of which, Android. I hear that came out about two years ago finally. Where can I get it? Can I use it on my iPhone and still have a contract with AT&T? So many questions arise as corporations producing communications devices and microcomputers shy away from culpability through open development. Limiting liability is common in any business. It's all in the name. Like Android. Personification turned virtual. A phone is now a humanoid-like robot. We can send it commands. We can train and program and utilize it. The leatherman of the inane.

I knew I would hand problems with the keyboard and it finally hit my why it sucks:
1) Some of those endearing truncations of the English language like Cl turn to do. Others are plain whack. Keyboards, when they were invented, were spread out. Anthropometrics played a huge role in the development of a machine that could write for a person. Keyboards in QWERTY were created based on some basic human principles of use. One of them, again, was enough room to use all five fingers when composing sentences. Peripheral functions surrounded primary entries (alpha and numeric). Some of us use F-keys and quick keys and shortcuts. On any device. That was yet another brilliant part of the Sidekick experience. Dedicated hard keys for the most important functions having to do with text (like CUT and PASTE and SELECT). And since the iPhone is about entering in numbers and letters and messaging and phoning and "surfing" and "searching"... I can do lots of things but only asynchronously, only sequentially or sporadically, not at the same time. Context is lost when switching from most applications to others. Disorientation was considered a highly unpleasant experience during my school days at ID/IIT.

In the end, workarounds for these problems—most of them simply decisions to appreciate what it can do and how it does feel and look—are a pain in the ass. When it comes down to it, palm computing is in its infamacy. And it is crazy considering how quickly other technologies came to be intermingled with society. Discussions about location-aware devices and handheld were somewhat old back in 1996 compared to what we thought was going to be the technology of today: HUD (head's up displays) and possibly reverse neuro-stimulation and neuro-control of computers. The keyboard was supposed to disappear like the small fingers on our hands. Americans would have less to get off their couches and out of their cars to do. We could export fat and be the largest population of liposuction clinics in the world...

I could go on but I am exhaused from rushing home to recharge my battery every 30 minutes. Even in sleep mode, the battery clicks down its life rapidly like a diabetic without insulin.