iPhone and dotMac

One thing that is bothering me about my new iPhone is that it does not have any real interconnection with my .mac account. Given that I am spending almost $100 per year for a really basic suite of services, I would expect them to interact with all of my Apple devices. I am hoping that this will change in the very near future. Namely, I would like the ability to sync my contact and calendar information with .Mac via the EDGE or Wi-Fi connections. I also want to have my published .Mac calendars update automatically when they receive changes synced from the iPhone over the air. Finally, I would appreciate access (even if just read-only access) to the files on my iDisk. I should be able to look at word, excel, pdf, images, and txt files on the phone. Right now, I can get to my iDisk using Safari, but I cannot open any files. All I can see is a list of files. I would also love the ability to easily save or download files to my iDisk. This would protect the integrity of the phone and its storage, while allowing me two-way access to files.

I think it would boost .Mac membership in general if these services were integrated and would be a smart move for Apple in general. Let's see what happens.

iPhone as a PIM

It did not take me long to find my first big fault with the iPhone. Everyone needs different things from a device. I really need a personal information manager (PIM). Basically, I need a great PDA with a phone, e-mail and web access. The iPhone is not yet a great PIM.

The calendar feature is sufficient but is missing a number of features that I would expect in an advanced device like the iPhone. First, I would like a weekly grid view. Currently, you can see a list of upcoming appointments, but if you have too many or too few, you will get more than a picture of your week on the screen. I was surprised to find that the weekly grid was not there, especially considering how useful it would be to allow the user to turn the phone sideways and work with the grid in a landscape orientation.

I also miss having a real task list. My last phone, a Treo 700p did a great job with this. A task list should give me a checkbox for each entry, a description field and a due date with a reminder alarm at minimum. Ideally, it should also allow me to categorize my tasks and give them a priority. Actually, all I am really looking for is true iCal integration, which I don't think is too much to ask.

All of these things would make the iPhone a better PIM. I hope some of the changes come soon. However, I suspect that we may need to wait until Leopard. There are many changes coming to the PIM features in OS X. I think that this may be the real reason why the iPhone lacks so many basic PIM features.

I just got an iPhone

For my birthday, my partner got me an iPhone. It was a big day for me, and a bigger day for my former wireless carrier, who got a hefty early termination fee, and for AT&T, who has me for the next two years. Was it worth it? That is what I plan to write about for the next few weeks. My initial impressions are favorable, but a lot can change over the course of a few weeks.