Friday, Nov. 21, 2008 -- 5 a.m. -- lying in bed

If Apple allowed ratings of the actual iPhone software like it does apps, I'd give it a solid 5 stars.

In a word ... Wow. Granted, it doesn't have the features we've wanted like MMS, but it's still a good update and that's what we're concentrating on here in fairness.

2.2 is fast and feature-packed. It's everything we read on the rumor sites and more. It's the Apple we know and love showing us that good things do indeed come to those who wait.

Here's a quick rundown of the big changes and my comments.

STREET VIEW: Slick!! Fast. Fluid. Great. Drop a pin at any address and click the little orange person icon that appears. Street View appears almost instantly in landscape view. Pinch and drag to zoom or rotate or tap the arrow to move. Little circle with pin shows map progress and allows for quick return to map.

TRANSIT AND WALKING DIRECTIONS: works as expected, at least in Chicago. Now if my iPhone could actually make Chicago's public transit more efficient? Well, that would be amazing. 2.3, baby!

HOME BUTTON: Who knew it could but the center button is even better. Press it to return to your FIRST home screen. So if you are on screen 8 and want to really go home, not just part of the way, hit it and be whisked.

APP UPDATES: Besides some slow showing of the 4 known updates -- guessing a network issue -- now, the app icon updates in place. And no more gray icon ... Real icon starts dim and turns full when done. Fast updates. And what's this I see? Is that an "update all" button??

AUTO CORRECT ON/OFF: As promised, if you don't like being corrected every other word, go to settings--> keyboard and turn auto correction off. I'm leaving it on! I need some guidance in my life.

PODCASTS: Works. Makes me willing to overlook the fact that this is long overdue. Weakness is that you can't schedule automatic downloads of podcasts -- still need iTunes and syncing for that. But it's ok because not only can you grab a podcast on the go, you can erase them too.

STABILITY: Safari hasn't crashed in an hour. Need I say more?

E-MAIL: Better wide HTML. More stability in general.

VOICEMAIL SOUND QUALITY: That's not your imagination. Listen to a voicemail. The sound is better. Yep.

CALL QUALITY ON 3G: Havent made a call because it's 5 in the morning but Apple says call quality is better and dropped calls are less problematic. We were promised this in 2.1 and it wasn't true. Let's see how we do this time. If it's anything like the rest of the software I have high hopes. **UPDATE - I tried it. I didn't notice anything special, but the call didn't drop. Good, but more testing needed.**

BATTERY LIFE: Not sure it's real with just one test but have been using the iPhone hard since 3. It's 5:13 and I've got a full battery icon. I'll kiss you, Steve, if you actually brought us better battery life.

COPY AND PASTE: Of course not.

Overall, great.

Did I miss anything? Do you agree? Disagree? Let me know here in the comments and over on Twitter

Thanks for calling.

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It does sound good. I like stability in my phone as much as anybody. All the same, I'm looking forward to the day when the list of "updates" won't just be "fixing what we messed up on at launch."

Still the best phone I ever owned, but it's embarrassing to have to tell people that I can't message them a stupid picture when showing off my phone.

SCOTT'S REPLY: I agree, Misty. Stability should have been there a long time ago and giving props for that isn't something we should do without pointing that out.

And yeah, the MMS thing is basic. It's a difference of opinion though. Apple thinks MMS is old and antiquated and email is the way to send a message. And I see the point, however, not every phone can handle e-mail.

And until Apple plays nice with every phone in the world and not just the ones it likes, it will continue to be an embarrassing problem.

Carriers aren't abandoning MMS by any means -- in fact, they are embracing it more and more. Apple needs to bite the bullet on this one and bring us MMS.

If they want to bring it in a new and exciting way that's backwards compatible, that's totally fine. But they can't just watch the train roll by.

Good info. Thanks!

SCOTT'S REPLY: Thanks for reading, Tim.

The interface changes are nice, good job sprucing and tightening things up. I like autocorrect as it is, so that's a non-issue. Home Button use is a good idea. All in all, the only new feature I'll use is Podcasts. Google Streetview is useless to anyone who doesn't live in a Top 5 US urban area, so I'll never use it. It's time for Apple to get to the basics like copy/paste and MMS with the next update.

SCOTT'S REPLY: I agree. There's more to be done.

Voicemail does sound better - maybe the call quality will improve even on the first gen. I like the way the transit stops show up in NY & Chicago. Not everyone's address does show up in street view. :( But, that's to be expected, though I was surprised my son's didn't as he lives in Chicago.

I really hope the problem I've had on a continual basis of answering/ending calls is taken care of with this. If it is, I won't be defecting to the Storm or the Bold.

SCOTT'S REPLY: I hope this works for you, too, Eleanor. Yeah, street view confuses me just a bit too ... I've seen street view of places on my desktop version and there's no option on the mobile version. So I'm not sure what the reasoning is behind that.

You're obviously a big Apple fan if you think this upgrade is that good. How many other phones have cut and pate! How many other phones have video! How many phones have blue tooth stereo! Why should I have to jail break my phone to get some of these these capabilities? Steve is a control freak and refuses to admit that he doesn't know what is best for us. Yeah, it is a superior phone but there is just no reason to force us to do without some things that are very doable if Steve would just admit he doesn't know what's best. Give me the above and I will begin to think he actually cares.

SCOTT's REPLY: Well, I agree with what you say -- there are more features to be had, but I don't think it has anything to do with being an Apple fan per se. Some of us just really love the iPhone -- the coolness, the look, the concept. Nothing else beats it even with all those features.

That said, Steve's problem is that he thinks that he can do everything better than everyone else and he won't do it unless it's better. Sad thing is that forces people to wait and makes for incompatibility. And there's also the carriers -- some carriers are not on board with video because of what it will do to their networks. We know that the iPhone is capable of video but I bet carriers are upset about it being implemented and that's playing a factor.

I think there's more to blame than Steve, although I think he needs to lighten up big time.

Prompted for user rating before deleting app. Don't know if this is good or not, most people are probably gonna give a low rating if they are deleting it from their iPhone, but its new with 2.2.

SCOTT's REPLY: Indeed and thank you for the heads up. I'll go back and add that because I forgot about it.

I had to delete and app and redownload it because of problems with it crashing. And when I deleted it, I gave it 1 star because the version I deleted sucked and was unusable.

It's a 2-star app now with the update, but when I'm deleting a problem app, yes, I just want it off my iPhone and at that point, it's getting the lowest rating there is.

Not quite sure how this can get 5 stars or even approach 3. First of all Google Maps is crashing everytime I try to use it for more than a minute. Second of all, where's the things people really seem to want? Apple continues to ignore the most glaring ommissions to iphone consumers: no push, no landscape modes for text and emails, no MMS, no copy/paste. Only 1 of the top 10 at pleasefixtheiphone.com issues are addressed (Safari crashes). Until at least a few of those are dealt with, these updates are a huge disappointment.

SCOTT'S REPLY: Few things, Paul. First, if you are having these kinds of crashes, consider a hard reboot if you haven't done one. Hold down the center button and the top button continuously until you see the apple logo. Let it reboot and see if the crashing is better.

As for the other things ... I do not disagree. There's more to be done. But what we have here is progress. We have something that's new. Should we have other stuff? Sure. But we can't control that.

What's so great about this update? No copy/paste. no video camera. No MMS. No horizontal keyboard in text/email. Cant create ringtones within your phone like the HTC phones have. overall this is a 1.5 not a 5 star. I guess giving out stars is easy. HTC phones are amazing, and way better than the JAILED iPHONE. Great move on Apple's part to release this update today when the Blackberry Storm comes out. Wait until January when HTC blows everyone away.

SCOTT'S REPLY: I don't disagree with you about the features that it lacks and should have. That said, I am completely underwhelmed by all HTC phones.

All in all, the 2.2 is great, it's faster, more stable and so on. But, where are the mms and copy/past?? Come on, Apple.

SCOTT'S REPLY: I'm hoping for it like everyone else. But apparently, either Apple sees these things as unnecessary or has some alternate plan in the works that will make us forget we ever complained. I hope and pray it's the latter.

Oh, and FYI ... it's not proper etiquette to put your URL on a site and not have a returned link to the site you are posting on. That's why yours isn't included.

I am impressed with the download, installation and update of iTunes and the iPhone. wow Its about freaking time we get a stable upgrade!!It took me 15 minutes tops to get itunes and iphone to update. Very happy, now on to testing the iphone and see if user interface experience will be the same. :-P

-everett

SCOTT's REPLY: Please do report back and let us know what you think when you've had time to try it out, Everett.

Saw somebody comment on another site that they had been running the phone for 10 hours or so and still had lots of battery left also; we'll see if what you noticed initially actually is an unannounced improvement. Sure would be nice....

SCOTT's REPLY: So far, I'm noticing better battery life for sure. We'll see if it lasts! Im going to post something now about it for a wider reach

I am trying to update to 2.2, and am hung in an endless backup. Any ideas?

SCOTT'S REPLY: Well, don't be too sure it's an endless backup. That's where I was this morning. Started at 12:15 and backup didn't complete until about 3:20. How long has it been going?

I don't truly know what causes the long backups other than excessive data that's written from 3rd party apps. So, if you don't sync often and have a lot of apps -- like I do -- this is what seems to happen. Although it varies.

I've heard of 12 hour backups. I'd let it sit for a while unless you tell me you started at midnight and it's still backing up. that's different.

And remember ... while a complete backup is optimal, no software is installed while a backup is occurring. So if you were to disconnect your iPhone, well, you'd interrupt the process which could damage files -- but you won't likely prevent the actual update from taking place.

But don't do that yet.

To MMS someone from an iPhone, send an e-mail to
[TenDigitPhoneNumber]@mms.[CarrierName].com or

[TenDigitPhoneNumber]@mms.[XX].[CarrierName].com
(where XX is the state you live in)
WA for Washinton, TX for Texas, etc.

I've had limited success with both.

SCOTT'S REPLY: Yes, and thank you, but e-mailing defeats the purpose of MMS. Not saying this is bad or you can't do it, but for the true MMS lovers, e-mail never enters the equation. But something is better than nothing.

Hi Scott,

Unfortunately, I seem to have a small
issue after 2.2 upgrade, I don't hear
"New Mail" notification sound when new
mail comes (when check manually). Initially
it did both vibrate & sound, and after reset
now vibrate is gone (as I turned it off)
but no sound, I checked Setup/Sounds/NewMail
it's on, maybe I need to restore and re-install
2.2?

Regards,
Chul Su Park

SCOTT'S REPLY: No, don't reinstall yet, Chul. Just turn your iPhone off, wait 10 seconds and turn it back on. Then try it and let me know what happens.

Hi Scott,

Your suggested method fixed part of problems,
it seems. I have three accounts setup, Yahoo,
GMail, and my university account. I tried
three and got beep one of them and not
the others, and that is rather random, I mean
sometimes only yahoo beep and other times only
gmail beep on new mails ... Hmm.

Thanks,
Chul Su

SCOTT'S REPLY: That's strange -- that you get the sound on one and not the other.

Do this:

1. Open the e-mail program -- any account - doesn't matter.

2. Hold down the center button until your iPhone takes you back to the first screen.

3. Hold down the center button and the power button for about 10 seconds until you see the Apple logo. The phone is now rebooting.

4. Once it reboots, test it again.

> Hi Scott,
>
> Unfortunately, I seem to have a small
> issue after 2.2 upgrade, I don't hear
> "New Mail" notification sound when new
> mail comes (when check manually). Initially
> it did both vibrate & sound, and after reset
> now vibrate is gone (as I turned it off)
> but no sound, I checked Setup/Sounds/NewMail
> it's on, maybe I need to restore and re-install
> 2.2?
>
> Regards,
> Chul Su Park
>
> SCOTT'S REPLY: No, don't reinstall yet, Chul.
> Just turn your iPhone off, wait 10 seconds and
> turn it back on. Then try it and let me know
> what happens.

Hi Scott,

Unfortunately, it did not fix the issue, but
as it's minor I can probably live with it;
or I may need to re-install if it really
bothers (probably not) me. I just thought
the problem I met when upgrade to 2.2 (1602
error) could be the source of this, as I had
to restore the phone.

Thanks,
Chul Su

PS -- Regarding the battery life improvement
what I really wanted to see was fix for this
issue, I'm not sure if this affects 3G
too or not as I only have 2G phone:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1785421

SCOTT's REPLY: I hope it resolves itself ... but I highly doubt that the 1602 error is related to this problem.

> Hi Scott,
>
> Your suggested method fixed part of problems,
> it seems. I have three accounts setup, Yahoo,
> GMail, and my university account. I tried
> three and got beep one of them and not
> the others, and that is rather random, I mean
> sometimes only yahoo beep and other times only
> gmail beep on new mails ... Hmm.
>
> Thanks,
> Chul Su
>
> SCOTT'S REPLY: That's strange -- that you get
> the sound on one and not the other.
>
> Do this:
>
> 1. Open the e-mail program -- any account -
> doesn't matter.
>
> 2. Hold down the center button until your
> iPhone takes you back to the first screen.

> 3. Hold down the center button and the power
> button for about 10 seconds until you see the
> Apple logo. The phone is now rebooting.
>
> 4. Once it reboots, test it again.
>
>> Hi Scott,
>>
>> Unfortunately, I seem to have a small
>> issue after 2.2 upgrade, I don't hear
>> "New Mail" notification sound when new
>> mail comes (when check manually). Initially
>> it did both vibrate & sound, and after reset
>> now vibrate is gone (as I turned it off)
>> but no sound, I checked Setup/Sounds/NewMail
>> it's on, maybe I need to restore and re-install
>> 2.2?
>>
>> Regards,
>> Chul Su Park
>>
>> SCOTT'S REPLY: No, don't reinstall yet, Chul.
>> Just turn your iPhone off, wait 10 seconds and
>> turn it back on. Then try it and let me know
>> what happens.

I send MMS on my iPhone through email.

To other AT&T customers, send a photo via email to:
xxxxxxxxxx@mms.att.com

To Verizon customers, send a photo via email to:
xxxxxxxxxx@vzwpix.com

etc. (xxxxxxxxxx is the receiver's phone number).

Not everyone has an Email MMS gateway. But if a friend's cell phone carrier has one, then it is easy to send them a photo via MMS Email.

They, in turn, can send you a photo via email if their carrier allows them to specify an email address rather than phone number when sending MMS.

SCOTT'S REPLY: Indeed, James. If the carrier allows it and in all honesty, if the person doing the sending is smart enough to figure it out. For some folks, easier is better and nothing is easier than texting a phone number. Not saying folks can't figure it out, but people do plead ignorance when they talk to me about this stuff.

STREET VIEW: Works great and I found my Gen 1 to be faster than my WinXP laptop that I was using to compare.
TRANSIT AND WALKING DIRECTIONS: works great and glad to see transit integrated.
HOME BUTTON: This would have been better spent on folders or categories to organize multiple apps instead of pages. I rarely go to my home page.
APP UPDATES: haven't tried this yet, good to hear its better.
AUTO CORRECT ON/OFF: Always good to be able to turn it off even if you never do.
PODCASTS: Haven't used it yet but good to know i can find a diversion to download while waiting for the L.
STABILITY: So far so good.
E-MAIL: Better wide HTML?
VOICEMAIL SOUND QUALITY: OK I didn't notice.
BATTERY LIFE: I hope this is true. One thing that is happening with all these apps, is that my battery life gets down to half at lunch and I have to charge before I leave work or I won't have any power for the train ride home.
COPY AND PASTE: Yeah, still waiting on that one.
PHOTOS: I've noticed that my photos have been down sampled after the update and look like crap. Very pixelated.

SCOTT'S REPLY: Stuck on your photo comment -- I have not seen this. Hmmmm. Let me know how your battery life ends up.

00) hey Scott - nice site, and your individual responded to the the posts shows lots if respect for your audience and a great work ethic ... though I gotta say, i have to wondet anout your priorities spending your friday night (3am-5am) not sleeping or not watching your g/f sleep :-)

SCOTT'S REPLY: LOL ... I hear ya. Folks always tell me that I have to do other things. And I do. Luckily, I type about 150 words per minute. And thanks for the kind words.

0) yes, the glaring ommissions are still MIA - cut an open Bluetooth stack (at least for stereo headsets! keyboards etc are plausibly still a luxury feature not a necessicity); mms (email is way to slow to setup); tethering; turn-by-turn gps (talking would be a great bonus - but then apple has totally missed the multi-billion boat on all the opportunities that TTS would open up! - eg cbt, esl, etc); not to mention the glaring ommission if dial-by-voice (that is just a pure safety issue - how could apple not "get it"?).

SCOTT'S REPLY: Yeah, it doesn't seem like it's something that Apple can't possibly miss. And you mentioned something very interesting that rarely comes up with MMS and that's the speed -- e-mails do take a while to attach and send out where MMS is usually much faster.

1) unfortunestely the new bug in iTunes store (that erases all your store credits) prevents me from risking an upgrade to her 2.2 (I really don't relish the idea of losing $100 in gift cards just because apple decided it would be cute to not hire any QA dept).

SCOTT'S REPLY: I was not aware of this bug. Where did you hear about this?

but I do have some feedback on a few things that no one else has mentioned before ...

7) a simultaneous live local copy (or mobileme copy on the network) of text input while composing inside a webkit-based app would be a great way to preserve session info across crashes - supposedly, you assure us, that safari does not constantly crash, but it would be nice to have a backup in any case (time machine should also be able to archive all our activity off the iPhone) - html5 forms should help with this (and a Squeak approach to compound documents would be a great ver3 enhancement). --- I can not endure scrolling line-by-line to the end of this textfield in order to append point#7.

SCOTT'S REPLY: I agree! Such a backup would be a wonderfully useful thing to have.

you indicate that safari is now stable in ver 2.2 (ha! i heard the same song & dance about safari being fixed in ver 2.1), but when it comes to protecting our data against lame QA from apple I don't think any amount of PlanB is unreasonable!
... so live backup for data would be a real comfort!

SCOTT'S REPLY: I did, too, and I sang the praises in 2.1 only to be let down. I'm hoping this stability that I see now stays put. Believe me, I'm skeptical.

2a) the intermittent audio alerts for email are not a new problem for her 2.2 (they arrived with her 2.1 - and restarts will not clear the problem).

SCOTT'S REPLY: Yeah, I've noticed some people writing me with strange intermittent sound problems.

2b) on ver 2.1, I can't figure out why I get afuffetent number if vibrater alerts when I reconect the power charger cable (sometimes just one, sometimes two) - is the meaning if these non-audio alerts more clear in her 2.2?

SCOTT'S REPLY: Same with me. Sometimes one vibration, other times 2. There doesn't seem to be a rhyme or reason to it that I can detect.

3) the ui widgets need to have a more (user-selectable) layout of the screen controls just like mac osx allows (especially for apps with text input) - it is way to easy to accidently hit a 'send' or a 'delete' key because they are placed in an (unnecessarily) dangerous proximity to the text keys! ... And many web sites layout their page controls in a way which is also an accident waiting to happen when using mobile safari for text entry (it is eady to over/undershoot the web controls when typing on the last/bottom line - this error will invoke an iPhone hi control that sits at the top of the keyboard). It is hugely frustrating to have to start over from the begining.

SCOTT'S REPLY: I agree ... I do like the new Twitter app Tweets which asks you once you hit send if you are ready to send the message. It's the safety latch.

4a) basic navigation controls need to be made complete & consistent - there is an implicit page_up command (but only in some apps! at mobile safari); however there is no page m_down command, so one can spend slot of time scrolling manually! grr.

SCOTT's REPLY: Couldn't agree more.

4b) navigation inside text boxes is truly horrendous - cursor position is tied-in to the 'magnifying glass' control, but this is suitable only for minor movements like spell-checking, not jumos to major, well-defined structures like next or previous word/line/sentance/paragraph etc. Having to position the cursor by forcing next character (which is the net effect of the magnifying glass) is a huge waste of time (especially since apple omits any ballistic interoreation if the cursor movement in mobile osx, unlike mac osx which has had this for a decade).

SCOTT'S REPLY: I know, this is indeed a huge waste of time.

4c) the alternate character sets for for the keyboard are not adaptive or consistent.

some apps have all the needed keys grouped together in the first set, without forcing the user to invoke a meta key to access a key that us logically used all the time in a hiven context (eg apple promotes the ampersand '@' key to the first-level keyboard when using the MAIL app, but not when the data-detectors should notice that the user us in the mailto textfield if a webform!) ...

so the user should be able control the layout of keyboards so that the character sets are suitable to the task.

SCOTT's REPLY: Indeed and when the keys are together and in an easy-to-use layout, it boosts my productivity for sure.

it's really time for apple to start enforcing html5 forms (by using the data-detectors to actually over-ride whatever lameness tgescript kiddies, er, webmasters have used! ... tge 'greasemonkey' approach should allow the user to experience a much more unified, canvas/component-like experience; the SQUEAK document model should be tested out on the iPhone first -where a zoom interface has only limited opportunity to overcome the limitations of a single-tasking workspace).

5) the home button needs to be much more responsive - a 911 energency is the most obvious situation.

SCOTT'S REPLY: But I've always wondered if this was created this way purposely to prevent accidental presses?

if the camera-app could have single button instant-on, then it would be possible to record a transient moment (instead if waiting 30 secs to exit, navigate to a new screen on springboard, load camera app, wait for rolls to unload or for CDs to get online) - eg license plate of a car that just cut you off, or the faces of drug dealers standing in an alley before they had a chance to turn their faces away ...

SCOTT'S REPLY: The camera app is clearly the weakest of all the apps -- well, there are other weak apps, but this one has absolutely no updates/fixes or anything attached to it since day 1.

in fact apple (or google or evernote, since apple seems to have exited dtge evelopment of iphone apps) should combine togetherall the content that one needs to document a situation fir the instant snapshot feature - this includes the gps info, as well as the audio, along with an automatic upload via email or streaming, and an (prompt) for an MMS to 911 dispatch (maybe with a really itunes-style simple menu of categories in order to help the 911 dispatcher).

but the key point here is that apple needs to have much more flexibility in general to assign the behavior of the home key (different users might have different requirements for 'do this instantly' - but the camera seems by far the most important yet pokey app).

SCOTT'S REPLY: Whether or not Apple is willing to add such flex down the road is a mystery for the ages.

perhaps the vox reco in the new google mobile app will allow users to create macros thatt would help in situations where public stealth is not required - though a bluetooth headset coukd obviate tge need for a bluetooth panic button. however, a special home button sequence (like a small morse code 'long short long' would also be a viable way to launch special macro sequence without conspicuously taking the phone out if your pocket ... and the tactility of the button could be complemented by orientation info from the accerometer (vert/horz) to support low-key interaction when in a surprise situation where it is advantageous that the iPhone remain out if sight.

6) tts ... as I mentioned above, the language learning marketplace would be a killer app for speech synthesis (as well as speech reco) on the iPhone - especially in asia where the esl marketplace is the single biggest point of entry for handheld devices. Also, tour guides with high quaility digital voices (museums and for site-seeing) is also another billion dollar content component that apple needs to aggressively address (as part of an over-all ebook initiative).

these are not really ver 3.0 features ... they are logical extentions of the potential if the existing hardware.

SCOTT'S REPLY: I agree -- they can be implemented now ... but even the things that are the easiest to implement will eventually be made to look like reinventing the wheel. That's how Apple likes to create a big show.

and apple really needs to keep the momentum going (especially during an economic downturn) because android & RIM are not going to try very hard to play catch-up.

SCOTT'S REPLY: I worry about both. I really worry about Android because of the passionate user base. I do not worry about RIM as much as other people. The BlackBerry storm, from everything I've been told, is no iPhone killer. It has a really poor user experience.

ps: it would gave been nice for you to have emphasized where the transit info from the new google map app is available only for USA or whether google had incorporated a global database (Americans seem to forget so easily that they represent only half a apple's revenue, especially for the iPhone!).

SCOTT's REPLY: You are correct on Google Maps ... that it is for the U.S. only. It's my fault because I know that I'm speaking to many countries on this blog. We have readers in 61 countries and that's something I never get tired of telling people.

SCOTT'S FINAL THOUGHT: I'm not sure I ever had a final thought in the comments, but zahadum -- gotta tell you -- it was a pleasure reading your insight. You really have some excellent thoughts here and I look forward to reading more from you going forward.

a couple of other niggles that apple needs to fix:

8) the battery status needs to be a touchable control in the menubar - it is insane that I have to quit my current app just in order to put the iPhone to sleep & then wake it up in order to see the progress of the charge!

SCOTT'S REPLY: The battery icon/level is a huge, huge problem in general. It's far from accurate, but it tells me precious little. I can't find out how many charges I've done, I can't see percentages. I can't see any meaningful information.

9) all the radios needed to be controllable from one single energy management panel (that does not mean that theyshpuld be eliminated from other control panels).

and apple needs to recall the "locations" approach to configuration that was so convenient in Classic but that has been eliminiated in mac osx for some strange reason.

it would be great if the radios could be power-managed as sets and soyuations according to some explicit policies .... instead of users having to manually chase all the power settings for all the radio scattered across too many different panels as the circumstances changed.

the idea of Roles is very important in any agent control system.

got instance, the power curve for wifi goes insane trying to find distant routers, so the user should bevsble to define certain spatial/temporal/useage policies that do not allow this (or any other radio) to vainly keep trying to reach a router when it is acettianable that it is infeasiblevor unnecessary. This would include placing an energy cap on the power consumed (be itge policy should be intelligent enough to distinguish between a greedy local algorithim that only optimizes for this isolated situation, versus a globally sensitive algieithim like simulated annealing that will appreciate a pattern if behavior - eg don't naively assume that maximum searchs fit wifi should be allowed on a full battery because they don't impact titalbusrage very much: instead look at the current pattern (going in/out elevators all day long if you are a courier) or look at the goal (a route had been plotted in google maps, orvhge to-do/calendar implicity defined a route that will be taken -sitting in traffic for hours - to the dentist). the current approach to power management is very simplisitic averages (if you haventvused the radio within tiimeX then turn off the radio; but if you have been active recently, then continue trying to connect with radio even if you don't know if itv is feasible).

SCOTT'S REPLY: I will admit that this is beyond my level of expertise, but for me, the entire remembering Wi-Fi networks is problematic. When I'm home, I use Wi-Fi. When I leave the house, I don't always remember to turn Wi-Fi off. But if I'm on a bus passing a Starbucks and my iPhone remembers that Wi-Fi hotspot and connects me to it, I'm not actually connected because I have to log in. So I'll be sending an e-mail, pass a Starbucks, get bumped from 3G to Wi-Fi and end up with a spinning wheel until Wi-Fi passes back off to 3G. I find this annoying to no end.

10) as for dropped calls performance, I can tell you that the strangest phenomenon that I experience is not that a call abruptly terminates under ver 2.1 ... rather it is the strange inability to connect at all to network in the first place (mostly fir data but occassionly voice will collapse as well - no carrier will be recognized byvthd phone).

hard to say how much this is an iPhone issue & how much is a telco issue (but I have never seen this glitch before the iPhone, be especially until vet 2.1).

SCOTT'S REPLY: Yes. Most times, I will see "CALLING XXXX" on the screen and nothing will happen - or it will go right to call failed. I do get some dropped calls in the middle, but you are correct, this is usually how it works.

11a) it would be nice to toolggle the date/time on the menu bar.

SCOTT'S REPLY: Oh, my yes -- the fact that the calendar icon changes to reflect the current date is a nice touch, but it's hardly enough.

11b) it would be nice to toggle some simple stop-watch functionality directly from the menu bar (without having to run a dedicated app).

SCOTT'S REPLY: I appreciate that it's bundled in the clock app but it could be easier to get to..

12) the compass is definitely a must -have for the next handset ... though it is disappointing that apple did not anticipate a minimum of upgradeabilitity forvthd current enclosure by having am extra socket on the mobo (or a little extra interface for the battery that could accompdatd an extra chip)

13a) remote data wiping!

SCOTT"s REPLY: I thought this was something Apple was talking about in previous generations of upgrades. Perhaps it's sitting in the queue with push notification.

is this an enterprise-only feature? l

apparently apple has not actually deployed this yet! (along with the missing push-based services).

but when it is ready to roll out, will apple offer a consumer version via mobileme?

SCOTT"S REPLY: In my humble opinion, if Apple can acutally make MobileMe work flawlessly from the start, it would be silly not to have a consumer version of Mobile Me. It makes things much easier than they otherwise would be and there are countless applications Apple could put this toward.

13b) and what about a firmware-based anti-theft reporting /tracking feature?!

SCOTT'S REPLY: That seems like something that should be present in an iPhone and any laptop these days, especially Apple's pro line.

14) the remote control app needs to be greatly extended beyond just iTunes!

SCOTT's REPLY: I'm sure that's in the cards. It just has to be.

apple needs to have a much richer abstraction of the mac ui (beyond the current accessibility api) - kind of like the way css3 can present different views of the same underlying document model.

salling clicker creates a lightweight representation of the mac's application menus on a cell/PDA - but is limited by the isv's underlying (and usually very inadequete) support for applevents.

apple needs to make sure that snow leopard can be elegantly & intuively controlled from the iPhone ... vnc-based remote desktops are clumbsy on the iPhone.

for example, the dock needs to add a native progress/status display for each icon, gathered from the app's internal telemetry.

this same metadata for the app needs to be presented in the remcon app so that the user can share this same basic management data at a glance in a dashboard view.

SCOTT's REPLY: So much of the iPhone's underpinnings are based in Leopard - and I hope the sheer power that is Snow Leopard only makes for a much better and faster experience.

15) another tweak I am suprised is taking so long is the use of the camera to place a image of the current footpath underneath the app the user is working on ...

one of the dangers of using the iPhone while walking down the street us that one loses info from peripheral vision - banging in to people or things can only be avoided if one constantly takes onesbeyes if the screen.

of course gamers will over-user this feature :-)

SCOTT's REPLY: Good point.

16) apple needs a more liberal policy for the dock license so that hardware vendors can vonnegu more cool stuff.

eg 'digital pens' would be a great note-taking complement to the iPhone (read itouch for almost all these suggestions) - especially for steyenographic apps or medical apps that needed a lightpen etc.

17) and last but not least, the spell-checker needs to be profoundly improved.

it is shite at present.

SCOTT'S REPLY: But at least you can turn it off if you want. Me? Never. I love it being on. It can always stand to get better, but I appreciate it being there.

oh yeah, I forgot one of the biggest disappointments in ver 2.2 .,,

18) the find command!

how apple thinks utbis possible to use mail, SMS, web, photo, etc without the ability to search the contents of one's phone is mind boggling!

SCOTT'S REPLY: For the longest time in version 2.0 and prior, there was talk of a global search a la Spotlight to address that exact issue and it just disappeared from the radar. Especially with all the songs and texts and e-mails that I have ... I absolutely need some sort of search.

Hi Scott.

I think the improvements addressed in this update are great BUT I'm disturbed by how Japanese users have ben given Emoji but it's excluded for everyone else. I Googled a bit and there is a hack to enable the feature through the Japanese keyboard it seems, so it is in the file we updated to, buried deep down somewhere, but it's disabled altogether unless it on the Japanese network. Why are we excluded??? Sad. How awesome would it be for the iPhone community in general to be able to take our text and email communication to a whole new level? Again, sad.

SCOTT'S REPLY: I secretly was hoping to have emoji so I could make everyone I text mad, but, no it's not to be.

When gradeing to 2.2 the phone is hanging at verifing iphone software is this normally a 2 hour process??

SCOTT's REPLY: At verifying, no ... usually backing up can take a long time. But not verifying. Don't disconnect it yet though.

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