The iPhone Software Worries Me

I know nowadays phones are becoming like computers, which means to say phone software are getting crappy like our beloved Windows *cough* *cough* is. But it does get a little worrying to get reminded how lousy the iPhone software is. Look at the change log of the latest iPhone 2.1 software, for example, which lists one highlight as “fewer dropped calls”. You mean it has been dropping calls?

Well, ok, it does surprise me. Maybe iPhone 3G owners have had to put up with their beautiful gadget randomly dropping calls. But for goodness sake, this is a phone, and it doesn’t quite get its phone functions working properly? It kind of sounds like you had bought a beautiful PDA that, oh, comes with an interesting phone application that can sometimes succeed in making phone calls.

Actually I’ve blogged about the iPhone software previously, and expressed my shock about how very basic features like “contact searching” could have been missing previously and only just got added in a software update. You know how for most phones, software updates are usually quite unnecessary. They may be nice to have improvements, but really not very essential. But the iPhone software updates are more like that of Windows patches… you really need to install them. I mean, assume you’re not willing to put up with dropped calls. And really, they have to get copy-and-paste into the software (and not as a 3rd party workaround).

I think this is a worrying sign of how phone software is developing. Will Google’s Android follow this path?

Imagine if phones are like PCs. (Yes I know there is Windows Mobile, and the iPhone is really OS X.) Would you one day have to consult a guru friend to figure out how to use your phone?