Rantings by Nick Buraglio

I’m frustrated. I really love my iphone. I’ve had one since the beginning, but I am feeling a bit of device envy for some of those “other” phones out there. I really like that I am basically carrying a unix box around in my pocket, and that I can install apps and sync calendars and contact and get email…..and that it all works seamlessly from my mac.
Many of those things are actually pretty straightforward and widely available…..if you have a PC. Now, RIM has released the new mac Blackberry app, and it works pretty well…it’s like 2002 for mac users with blackberries!
This is the niche that the iPhone filled.
Unfortunately, all of the politics and apple-ness has also come with that nice package. They want to control the user experience, and for the most part they do a fantastic job of it. I’ve always been a big apple fan, even when their OS sucked (and how; remember OS7?), but I’m also a control freak. I want to be able to tweak….without violating some arbitrary user agreement.
I want to be able to run the apps that I want to run, not what some carrier or some hardware company wants me to run. So, to that end, I will be considering all other devices that can perform similarly when the time is here to upgrade.

Lets go over a few things.

Here are the things that I am looking for:

Media support of mp3, video, audiobook
Full mac support for adding media (music, video, audiobooks)
Support for secure syncing of contacts (via either mac or OTA)
Support for secure syncing calendar OTA.
Secure email support of more than 2 accounts (activesync or imap).
Ability to install all available apps [easily, without a hack].
Unix based operating system
802.11g wifi
3g cellular support
>=2.0mp camera
ability to lock screen with code
video recording capability

Extra points for:
Supporting my existing provider (AT&T)
expandable memory
user replaceable battery
*not* having to jailbreak or hack device to unsupported state to accomplish all requirements

So far the contenders are:
Nokia n900
Motorola Droid
Palm pre
LG eve(?)
SE Xperia X10(?)

Does anyone else have any suggestions?

I got interviewed for the WCIA channel 3 news for a cell phone tracking/hacking follow up story. They cut out a lot of the interview for other content, but I still had a few comments.

Finally, finally, finally. The iPhone 3.0 OS that was announced this week is finally adding features that the original iPhone should have had. Features that some of which, other than a software addition, were always possible, not new, but nonetheless unavailable.
The features include:
Exchange 2007 remote search support
MMS
Copy/Paste
Read and compose email and text messages in landscape
…among many others.

Some screenshots, linked via BGR:

We’ve finally stepped out to 2004 with the addition of MMS. MMS is a luxury, I agree, but i used to use the heck out of it and the fact that it wasn’t available on such an elegant device such as the iPhone was, frankly, stupid. The argument that we should “email photos” holds no water since (being very generous) only 20% of people have smartphones that can get email.
Copy/Paste is also not new, but was something that I could understand not being in the first rev of the iPhone. The touchscreen implementation was completely new and I’m sure it was hard to get that aspect just right. A little late, but Kudos, apple.
Exchange 2007 remote search support….ehh, I don’t really care that much but I may care more if I have to switch to exchange for work email. Lets just hope we can have more than one ActiveSync account since now google offers a push calendar solution that I’m pretty much fully invested in.

Official apple page on the subject.

This looks pretty slick. I can’t wait.

That iPhone Dev team has decided to port the linux kernel and BusyBoxto the iPhone and write a completely new boot loader to support dual booting.

iPhone Linux Demonstration Video from planetbeing on Vimeo.

I’m not sure that it really means anything for everyday users of the iPhone at this point, but it’s certainly interesting for geeks, hobbyists, code hackers and possibly developers.
If I had a spare iPhone I might give it a whirl just to see it work, but since I don’t I’ll just be satisfied with the announcement.
Any way you look at it’s pretty nifty.