iPhone gripes
Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens are all well and good for Austrian nannies, but we ill-tempered TUAWians have had our fill of iPhone inconveniences. We're mad as hell and we're not going to take it any more. Here is our abbreviated list of iPhone quirks that tick us off. We know you've got your list too (as do the 300-odd commenters at Engadget) and we encourage you to add your issues in to the comments.
Why isn't iPhone Safari learning to auto-fill my user names?
Why can't I start a search in YouTube, pop over to check the weather, come back and find the results of my search? Instead, the search terminates and the search field clears.
Why isn't there a front-page address book app?
Why can't I get consistent EDGE reception? I live in a major metropolitan area, damn it.
Why can't I just get disk access without having to resort to extreme hackery?
Why can't I SMS more than one person at a time?
Why can't I receive a call while surfing the web like the Sidekick does?
Why can't I just edit an outgoing e-mail address without having to go back and type it all in again?
Why can't I maintain individual calendars instead of having them all lumped together?
Sure, we can meebo, but why is there no built-in iChat?
I hate paying thirty bucks a month for a voice plan that I don't use. I wish I could cancel the voice plan and keep the data plan but AT&T says I can't.
Where's Flash? I want Adobe to fix the OS X Flash plugin, and then I want it on my iPhone. We admit that the existing Flash for OS X, if moved to the iPhone, would be an unmitigated disaster; it would drain your battery in about 3 minutes while causing the iPhone to burn its way through your pocket, melting the ground beneath you and sinking rapidly into Earth's molten core. One Flash video on my MBP causes Safari to spike to 70% CPU and kicks my fans into overdrive... that sort of unoptimized code on a handheld platform is a recipe for pain.
When my screen gets all smudgy, why can't I just clean it on my shirt? I hate carrying around the iPhone wipie-cloth all the time. (Chartier claims his T-shirt works just fine). Chris U gets the best results from t-shirts made of hemp. You can also use shield lens care cloths from Hilco and other photography-quality lens-cleaning cloths.
Why does AT&T keep sending me balance updates for my prepaid plan every few minutes, even when I haven't used the phone for anything? When I make a call or text? Fine. Send me an updated balance. But when the iPhone is just sitting there? Puh-lease!
Why can't I delete the last-taken photo immediately from the camera interface without having to go to the photos section? That snapshot button is so super-sensitive, I keep taking pictures I didn't mean to.
I hate having to navigate over to settings all the time. Why can't I just access the settings for a program (e.g. e-mail) from inside the program itself like I can with Weather and Stocks?
The email account UI is positively dreadful. Tap 2/3 times to get into one inbox, then 2/3 times back out, then 2/3 times back into another one is for the birds. I hate the email UI and would love the chance to kick a responsible party in the pants for it.
