You could call iPhone perfect – but you’d be wrong

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Thursday, 18 January 2007 18:35

Your IT - Mobility

Oh, the iPhone. Most of the world seems to love you, even though you’re unattainable. Those who have held you in their hands are surprised and amazed. But you’re not perfect!

If you’ve been following the iPhone stories over the past week or two, you’ve read many gushing reports on how amazing the interface is, how Steve Jobs is a genius, how the phone has been revolutionized and more.

The latest report from the Chicago-Sun Times on how ‘You could call iPhone perfect’ is an excellent example. By and large, I heartily agree with their conclusions - except calling the iPhone perfect.

After all, you’ve likely also read stories about how the iPhone lacks 3G, a larger memory capacity, no no Skype, no Wi-Fi sync, no word on Bluetooth stereo headphone support, no independent third party apps and how it’s locked in to a single carrier for now - amongst other negatives.  

You might have even read stories talking about the advanced phones in Japan and Korea, and how, in those countries, all of these advanced features are not only taken for granted, they are years ahead of the US, with the iPhone the first ‘US’ phone to really show some promise of catching up.

All of the above is true, of course. The iPhone is amazing. Yet it so clearly lacks a number of features that have been well covered before. Features that we could see in the iPhone 2, or 3.

The thing is that we all know there have been five and a half generations of the iPod, with the iPhone clearly a 6th generation model.

The 7th generation iPod/iPhone is on the drawing board. Jobs kept the iPhone secret for 30 months. What else did he keep secret at the keynote?

But will the 7th generation iPod/iPhone be perfect, then?

Of course not. We’ll find things to love and hate about it, too. 8th generation? 9th generation?

I don’t think there’ll ever be a ‘perfect’ anything. But until then we must all keep trying to better the technology we have, whether it’s one man or woman with a crazy good idea to make something better, or a company with billions of dollars spent each year in R&D.

We don’t want technology that is good enough with a few extra features tacked on. Hundreds of iPod-clone brands can attest to that.

Steve Jobs clearly goes the extra mile to deliver what he thinks is the best solution. Sometimes that means not giving people features they say they want – like a built-in FM radio, or a voice recorder. But it’s the solution he’s sure will sell.

So you can easily bet that the iPhone 2 or even 3 will be lacking things that people say they want. While we’re yet to see what the iPhone will really be like when it launches, one thing’s for sure: it will not be perfect for us, but it sure will be perfect for Apple!