The Other Drummer

Courtesy of JorgenSmith

Time for a rant.

Seriously folks, I’m about to do it. I’m toying with the idea of ditching my iPhone for an Android handset.

iOS is starting to look extremely antiquated. A grid of icons? How very Palm Pilot circa 1999.

The notifications system is a joke. Multitasking is half-baked. Accessing basic system settings is restricted from app developers and cumbersome at best for end users. I seriously worry that Apple is ending up in the same place they were with the PC market: break out with an world-changing product then fall behind.

The only innovative thing about iPhone 4 was the retina display. And don’t talk to me about FaceTime – it’s a gimmick backed by overly dramatic advertising.

iOS 4 was a minor bump in functionality (congratulations, you can now change the background on your homescreen) but nothing even close to “Holy cow that’s awesome. They’re totally pushing the envelope here.”

I hate to say it, but Apple needs to spend a little less time making sure you can’t see pixels on your icons and a little more time looking at functionality.

Function over Form

Today I came across an Android application called Tasker (you can read a review here). For $6 it will do pretty much anything you want to your phone. What do I mean by that?

Using a series of “if, then” processes, you can get your phone to behave however you want, whenever you want, wherever you want.

“When I go to the movie theater, dim the screen by 50%, turn off WiFi, Bluetooth and 3G. Silence the ringer, put the phone on vibrate and only ring/notify me if the call or text it comes from the babysitter’s number.”

Or…

“If I place my phone face down on a surface while at work, forward my calls and stop checking for email.”

Or…

“I want my alarm clock to go off at 7:00 AM, play X song, turn on WiFi and stop call forwarding. Turn on text message notifications, check all email and social networking accounts. Open my to-do list then tell me ‘David, you’re  a handsome rock star but you need to get out of bed.’ Only do this on weekdays for the month of August.”

Kind of like this:

It’s basically Tony Stark’s bedroom window. But on your phone. And without the blond skank.

For $6.

And it’s only available on Android phones.

This is the kind of killer app I keep looking for Apple to come up with – or at least enable others to come up with.

Those clever hackers. You can now jailbreak your iOS device simply by going to jailbreakme.com in Mobile Safari and sliding your finger across the screen. Wait a couple minutes and – done. You can now install anything you want on your phone just from visiting a website.

Mad props to the Dev Team for such a feat.

But what if this was used for nefarious purposes? Talk about a security vulnerability: visit a website, click a link and someone has root access to your phone: usernames, passwords, email, contact lists, etc.

While everyone is lauding the act (as well they should), it’s important to keep in mind that this exploits a security vulnerability – and a big one by the look of it.

Image courtesy of Xavier Fargas

I was listening to one of my favorite podcasts, Macbreak Weekly, and naturally the discussion was about the iPhone 4′s reception issues. (Have you noticed that I haven’t blogged a single thing about the iPhone 4?) They made a really good point about how snobby we can get when it comes to technology.

Guilty.

But in my defense, anyone who is geeky about anything is, by definition, a snob about it. At least to a certain extent.

It’s funny. It’s just four minutes long. It has only one mild swear word. It’s a good reminder. Click the link below to listen to it in your browser.

MacBreak Weekly Clip

Dear Makers of Widgets and Apps,

If your weather widget says the high is going to be 84 degrees but the actual high is already over your forecast, please make your widget/app smart enough to realize that 85 is higher than 84 and change the day’s high temp accordingly.

Much love,

Dave

Be sure and watch it in full screen. Looks like it could be the perfect mixture of visual, interactive elements and text – specifically designed to tell a story. Brilliant.

While I wouldn’t want to read The Hunt for Red October like this, I think there’s a lot to be said for the forthcoming multimedia aspect of books. What do you think?