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It's Not Perfect
So far in my review I've been extremely positive about the iPhone, but like most things in this world, it's not perfect. So today I want to explore some of the flaws of the iPhone. However, I want to take a bit of a different approach for this.

By now you've probably read the things most people are listings as flaws -- AT&T's network, missing 3G, no Exchange Email, limited Bluetooth support, no Flash or Java, etc. What bothers me about most of these criticisms is that they are either out of Apple's control (AT&T's network) or merely wishlist features that that particularly reviewer desires. There are definitely missing features I want Apple to add, but not having them isn't necessarily a flaw.

For the sake of this article, I'm defining a flaw as a fundamental error in the design, concept, or implementation (this includes outright bugs). A missing feature is not considered a flaw unless the feature is critical to a useable product or the iPhone implementation is so poor the feature is broken.

For example, some people consider the lack of "voice calling" (being able to call someone by speaking their name) such a serious limitation it means they cannot purchase an iPhone. I disagree: the iPhone will make calls without this feature, so the lack of it does not cripple the phone. Hence is not a flaw. It might be on our wishlist, and certain individuals may decide to wait until that feature is added before they purchase an iPhone, which is fine, but most people can get along without it.

So within this admittedly extremely narrow definition of "flaw," what do I consider iPhone flaws? Let's explore.

Long Document Scrolling
The multitouch interface of the iPhone is certainly innovative, and Apple obviously spent a lot of time internally testing and refining it. But it does have a few issues I'd like to see addressed. One of my biggest annoyances is scrolling long documents. This happens when reading a long PDF file but is most common with websites with lots of content. Apple's "finger flick" scrolling technique is wonderful for panning around a large page, but it has one fatal flaw: there's no way to quickly go to the beginning or end of a long document.

With a traditional Mac interface, scrollbars have an "elevator" (or thumb) you can drag to jump you to another location quickly. While the iPhone displays a thumb-like scroll indicator while you scroll, there's no way to grab it and drag it. This means you're forced to do countless flicks to move around the document. This problem is exacerbated with web pages, which are slow to redraw when scrolling.

I most often encounter this when I read through a long, vertical webpage and then want to do something with the page's URL. For instance, to refresh or bookmark the page, or email the URL to a friend. This requires I scroll to the top of the page as the Share URL, bookmark, and refresh buttons are only available from the URL address area above the page. (Apple could fix this by locking the address bar so it doesn't scroll with the page.)

Safari and YouTube
Mobile Safari won't actually play YouTube videos you find on the web -- instead it will switch you to the iPhone's YouTube application where you can watch the video in widescreen orientation. I have no problem with this approach. You can easily get back to the original web page with a push of the Home button and a tap on Safari.

However, YouTube on the iPhone only supports H.264-encoded videos, a subset of the YouTube library. Unfortunately mobile Safari doesn't give you any indication of whether a YouTube link is playable on iPhone or not. You're forced to click on the link and be switched to the YouTube app which will tersely report, "YouTube can't play this video." Why not just have the YouTube link in mobile Safari display an icon that indicates it's not playable on iPhone so you don't have to bother with it? A minor detail, sure, but a problem made more annoying because it's such an easy fix.

Cover Flow
This could be just me, but even after a month of iPhoning, I still find it totally confusing that Cover Flow mode does not just display albums within my currently playing playlist: it's always my full library.

This is confusing because I don't expect it. It's frustrating because I love the Cover Flow view of my music but when I'm listening to a particular playlist, I only want to flip through songs within that playlist.

I keep getting shocked when completely unrelated albums and songs show up. For instance, say I'm looking at my "instrumental only" playlist and songs with lyrics show up: not what I'm looking for and I wonder if I did something wrong. When this happened initially I thought I'd get used to it, but no, a month later and I'm still annoyed and puzzled by it.

No camera shutter button
Try this: hold your iPhone sideways so the volume controls are at the "top." Now pretend you're taking a picture and press one of the volume buttons. Nice, isn't it? Doesn't it feel natural, like the shutter release on a traditional camera?

Apple, please, enable the volume buttons to activate the camera shutter when you're in camera mode. It's such a simple thing it probably would take minutes to program, but it'd be really helpful for using the camera. The current virtual one really is awkward for camera use. At minimum, I'd make it bigger -- perhaps tapping anywhere on the screen would take a picture.

macopinion@designwrite.com