8 Things Apple Needs to Fix
Seems I’ve been banging my head against my desk and shaking my fists at Apple more frequently as of late. Here are some things that I think Apple needs to give some serious attention to.
In no particular order:
MobileMe
Seriously… what a huge disappointment. Pretty much everything I wanted to use MobileMe for is either busted or unsupported. Sure it looks pretty in Safari, but functionality wise, it doesn’t quite work as expected.
1. True Push Email
For a paid service you would think one would be able to use their own custom domain email address. I can’t start sending business email from base2 [@] me.com. That’s super-cheese. So keeping my email synced on my three devices using MobileMe is now scratched off the list.
2. Subscribed Calendars
How on earth did this get left out… overlooked… whatever you want to call it? Sure I know there’s some workaround for stuff like birthday calendars, hockey game schedules, etc… I can live without those on my mobile devices or remote logins. My colleagues and my families schedules, which I subscribe to, often change multiple times a day and are unavailable to me through MobileMe. I know a lot of people who have more subscribed calendars then their own calendars… all of which are just as important. Combine this with the fact that you can’t selective sync with MobileMe, (it’s all or nothing), means I can’t use it at all for syncing. Again, scratch another feature off the list.
Apple… you need to seriously fix MobileMe. The service you are charging good money for is nothing like your advertising.
iPhone
3. Sluggish Performance
The iPhone 2.x software has some great enhancements over 1.x but lets face it… it’s not near as responsive. The delays between interface elements, especially in Contacts, is significantly worse in 2.x.
4. Landscape Keyboard
Enable a landscape oriented keyboard across the entire OS. The landscape keyboard makes typing significantly easier.
5. Bluetooth Syncing
Since I can’t sync through MobileMe, (see above), it would sure be nice to sync to my computer using Bluetooth. This is a feature that should not have been omitted from the phone. I can understand cable syncing for the iPod portion of the phone, but forcing us to physically connect to sync Contacts, Calendars, Bookmarks and Email just should not be.
6. Flash Support
Seriously… if there is one thing I hate worse than a full Flash website… it’s trying to access the info on a full Flash website using my iPhone. Apple… throw Adobe a bone here and help them get Flash going on mobile Safari.
7. Syncing Note
Notes is one of the most useful apps on the iPhone and on my Mac. Not being able to sync Notes makes it one of the most useless apps. Thank goodness for Evernote.
Apple TV
8. Infrastructure & Bandwidth
Apple… I really think you have the cash to buy some additional bandwidth and infrastructure. When I rent a movie on my Apple TV it’s completely unacceptable to have to wait 5 - 6 hours before it’s downloaded. (And not this is not a bandwidth or ISP problem on my end). I want to watch my movie tonight… not next week. Even if I can start watching it tonight, I can’t finish it because it’s not done downloading until tomorrow. This is a problem that is easily solved with money… which Apple is not short of lately.
Example… I rented Training Day tonight at 7:15 pm. It’s now 10:00 pm and my Apple TV says it only 24% downloaded and will be ready to start watching in another 2 hours. Well… midnight is a bit late to start the movie. Apple fix this please!