Tuesday, October 23, 2007

The 5 Things the iPhone Can't Do

When switching from a Nokia E62 to an iPhone, I have been first struck by how elegant the iPhone is. Then I've been hit by all the things that I was doing on the Nokia and that I couldn't do anymore with the iPhone.

To make it short, I'll just go through the top 5 things I can't do anymore on the iPhone:

  1. Make phone calls - When at home, I used to make almost all my calls with my cell phone. The Nokia E62 as well as its predecessor worked like a charm, also on the AT&T network. With the iPhone, calls are often breaking up and the iPhone occasionally tells me that my calls can't me made in the first place. So now I avoid making calls on the iPhone from home.
  2. Use the great Gmail Mobile application (there is a Java as well as a native Symbian version). It is super-fast, both using very little bandwidth, but also making easy to navigate through email thanks to a number of keyboard shortcuts.
  3. Get an Internet connection from my laptop through Bluetooth/GPRS. This wasn't very fast, but it was super-convenient (think: at the airport or during that meeting at a company that doesn't have open Internet connections).
  4. Transfer media to the phone wirelessly. I was doing that through Bluetooth. The iPhone has Bluetooth; it has WiFi; but you need to connect it with a cable to your laptop to transfer files.
  5. Download podcasts directly from the phone. Nokia even provides an application for you to do that: Nokia Podcasting. With the iPhone, I need to download podcasts from my laptop, connect the phone to the laptop with a cable, and then transfer the podcasts through iTunes.