The Case For a Better iPhone
caro:
Photo credit: TUAW
The iPhone has been looking more and more dated to me every day recently. Let’s run down the laundry list:I’m sure there are plenty more that I could think of, but that’s it for now…
- Screen: The Motorola Droid now has a FAR superior screen. Upping the resolution from 480px by 320px to 720px by 480px (almost doubling pixel density). If you’ve seen this one in person, you know EXACTLY what I’m talking about. The Droid’s screen is dramatically more impressive. »> Wins hands down.
- Home Screen: Again, Android 2.1 beats out iPhone here. Fully customizable with widgets, etc. I could really care less about customizability so long as I at least had new SMS, Mail and today’s Calendar on the home screen. This would eliminate MANY app opens. »> Real time App updates can be the future resolution for this problem. (Similar to how the calendar actually tells you what day it is.)
- Camera: Looks like Google’s new baby, the Nexus One trounces the iPhone here, with a new 5MP camera and Flash, while the iPhone comes in at a modest 3MP and no flash. Come on guys, even Photo Booth on the Mac has a pseudo-flash. »> Needs to be updated ASAP!
- Background Apps, App Switching: This has become a huge pain after seeing even far inferior phones like the Palm Pre destroy the iPhone’s workflow. Some may argue it’ll destroy battery life, and while I would mostly agree, I think it backgrounding should be on an app-by-app basis. All the iPhone OS has to do is ask if you want to “allow background processing” on an app as it opens. Then you’re volunteering for worse battery life. I’m cool with that, if it means I’m more efficient. »> Side note: Hackers figured out how to multi task on a jailbroken iPhones.
- Better App Distribution: Palm OS wins a gold medal award here for originality. They have a similar application store to Apple, but if you don’t want to pay the fees and wait for approval, you can still release your app, but on your own website instead. That means that the app store itself is not endorsing your app, and it takes a user’s direct navigation to make it to your website, and thus, download your app. This allows developers to get releases that would otherwise not be endorsed by app stores out there. »> They have less than 5K worth of apps vs. apple stores almost 100k, there is no comparison.
Matt’s got a point (and he knows his stuff, so you should take note). I was at Tom & Jerry’s the other night with a handful of people, and we were having a conversation about whether now’s the time to dump AAPL stock — the reason being that Apple is apparently on the verge of releasing That Magic Tablet, and that after that it really looks like the well of Cupertino gossip starts to run dry.
I’m not a financial adviser and I don’t cover Apple in enough depth to make a personal judgment call on this one, but I think it’s a legitimate question. There are some rumors floating around there about revamps to the iTunes store in light of the Lala acquisition, but that’s about the most exciting stuff I’m hearing right now. Matt’s post highlights the fact that the iPhone could use a few meaningful tweaks in light of the fact that it finally has some solid competition, but generally rumors about this would have been leaked by now.
Maybe Jobs will surprise us on the 26th.
Some notes on the above.. =) Surprisingly, the nexus still lags when scrolling.
