Mark Smitka

6 More Things the Next iPhone Needs

I ran 3.0 beta 5 briefly on my iPhone, and was happy to see cut/copy/paste, landscape mode SMS and e-mail, etc, but there are a few software and hardware changes that Apple needs to bring to the iPhone. Whether or not they'll be present in the new iPhone device/3.0, I'm not sure.  I am sure that they're long overdue:

1. An external notification light. Maybe the Home button can pulse/glow, or maybe they can add a simple LED somewhere else on the phone, but seriously, people need to be able to look at their iPhone across the room, and know if they've missed a call, SMS, or e-mail message. Making users grab the phone, press a button, and slide to unlock to look for badge notifications is just absurd.
2. Home screen or menu-bar notifications.  Both have been available via jailbreak for a long time. Once I do unlock the phone, I want to see a summary of what I missed (and appointments, to-do tasks) right there.
3. A user configurable dictionary, where I can add unique words, spellings, and custom words.  If I type "What's new" a lot, being able to have it auto-spelled from "wn", would save time and keystrokes.
4. A MicroSD card slot.  What's the big deal with this? It disrupts the seamless/artistic/smooth design of the device?  Give me a break. That's easily offset by the convenience (and cost savings) of making one phone variant, and allowing users the ability to upgrade memory as they see fit.
5. Give me the flexibility to change all UI sounds. Who can really hear that e-mail notification sound, unless you're sitting in a library with the phone in your top shirt pocket?  I can change ringtones, why not the other sounds.
6. Let me add a background image to the phone - not just the lock screen wallpaper. Is the OS so fragile that a simple wallpaper is going to crash it? Come on Apple.  This is an absolute no-brainer.

Give me what's already known to be coming in 3.0, and what's on that list, and I'm pretty sure the iPhone would be a second-to-none device.

KFC Montgomeryville PA: Terrible Service

I went to KFC today (the Montgomeryville PA, KFC/A&W Combo store), hoping to get a 3 piece grilled chicken meal. The fact that the "This store is cleaned and maintained by _______" sign was about to fall off the wall, should have been my first clue that I was in for a bad experience:

1. The wait time for a line of just a few people, was far too long.  I probably spent 5-10 minutes in line before my order was taken.
2. Once my order was taken (that part of the process wasn't too bad), I stood and waited at least another 5 minutes, while a seemingly nice, but very confused order picker fumbled over the order filling process for the people in front of me.
3. When it came time to fill my order (not when I ordered, of course), I was then told that there wasn't any more grilled chicken, and that it would take approximately 6 minutes.  Not wanting to spend 6 "KFC minutes" (probably 15 real minutes) standing there, I asked for regular recipe chicken instead.
4. I ordered corn on the cob as one of my sides, but of course that wouldn't be up front with the rest of the sides. The order picker vanished to the "back room", and returned with what I later found to be a room temperature ear of corn.  Yeah, it was cooked (to the point of being mush-on-a-cob), but it was lukewarm at best.

So, here's a few tips for the KFC/A&W/Yum restaurant folks:

• This is supposed to be fast food, but the process is only as fast as the slowest person in the process. Hire people that can look at your food products, recognize them, and fill and order in a timely manner. An awful lot of people are unemployed, so you shouldn't have any trouble finding good people.
• Find a way to manage your inventory of food products, so that guests aren't surprised to find that what they ordered will be delayed.
• Don't ever have someone go into the "back room" for food. It just looks tacky.
• Do whatever it takes to get your guests in and out of line, with what they came in for, in a reasonable amount of time.

I think it'll be a long time before I visit a KFC restaurant again.

Swine Flu: No Cause For Alarm?

Today, the acting head of the CDC (pictured above) stated that while Swine Flu was not yet contained, there was no cause for alarm. His comments were brief, adding that he couldn't stay, as he was on his way to a cookout.

Buying a GPS? Same TomTom: $210 Less at Amazon Than at Best Buy

The screen captures say it all.  Same TomTom device: $210 less at Amazon than at Best Buy (and no, that's not a Deal of the Day or other Gold Box/Lightning special at Amazon).  My point: Check the price at Amazon before buying anything at Best Buy. In fact, seriously, don't buy anything at all from those Best Buy clowns. The only thing that store's missing that they should have is a jar of KY at the door.  People that shop there are gonna need it.

 

Oprah Cancels Show on Columbine: Apparently Forgot What It Was About

Oprah canceled the episode of today's show saying that after she watched the taped show, she decided not to air it because of it's focus on the two gunmen.  What did Oprah think was going to be on the tape?  After all, it is her show, isn't it?  The next time the anniversary of something terrible rolls around, Oprah should stick to what she knows best: An in-depth story of her struggle with dieting.  That'll make it all just go all away.

While Windows Users Battle Viruses and Spyware, Microsoft Concentrates On Window Tiling

Jessica Mintz wrote an interesting story that she's calling Behind The Scenes With Windows 7. She tells us that:

"• Back story: Microsoft couldn't initially figure out why people were spending so much time resizing windows and dragging them around. It turned out that users were trying to give themselves a side-by-side view of documents for easy comparison."

I think it's great that Jessica was able to get the behind the scenes scoop on what made Microsoft tick when they crafted Windows 7, but did it occur to Microsoft that it would be nice if they could figure out why people spend so much time (and money) battling viruses, phishing, and spyware. Did it occur to Jessica to ask?  What she wrote reads more like an ad for Windows 7 than news.

In any case, you can bet that once Windows 7 rolls out, it'll be exactly like every version before it in one way: It'll be a dog to manage, it'll nag you to re-start your system after nearly every update, and those updates will be frequent.

One thing Microsoft has figured out: When they release a "fix", and call it a new version, people will pay for it.

T-Mobile Misses Boat By Not Offering UMA on All Devices

UMA calling is probably one of the best features T-Mobile offers on some of their devices.  For those not familiar with it, in simple terms, it provides a way to make calls via wi-fi. With T-Mobile's HotSpot at Home service, all calls made that way are free (if you have the optional service added to your plan). What's nice though, is even without the plan, you can make calls that way, and the minutes are counted just as they would be if they were placed over the cellular network. The benefit is that you can get signal most anywhere there's wi-fi, which includes, home, work, etc.  It stands for Unlicensed Mobile Access, and more can be found about it here:

UMA Wiki

T-Mobile leaves a big gap in UMA capable devices, and I have no idea why. For example, if you want a full QWERTY phone with UMA, it'll have to be a BlackBerry. I was disappointed to find that though T-Mo has added a lot of nice features in the soon to be released Sidekick 2009 (3G, for example), there's no wi-fi/UMA.  This would have been a great feature for that phone, and one that would have made it an almost "must have" device.

UMA is a feature that no other US carrier has (to my knowledge), and one that truly sets the T-Mobile apart from the crowd. Why not capitalize on it, and add it to all devices?  Come on T-Mobile.  Your network and handset lineup is getting better every day, and your reputation with respect to customer service is the best in the business. I have no doubt that you'd grab a lot more subscribers by more aggressively marketing UMA, and adding it to every device.

Eli Lounging Around

I thought I'd test the Flip Video Ultra out on my dog Eli. He's a willing subject, though not very excited about the whole deal:

Getting a Fastmail.fm Account Configured With Nokia Messaging

Nokia Messaging (found here: Nokia Messaging) is to Nokia devices, what BlackBerry Internet Service is to BlackBerry devices. At the moment, it's a no-charge service, but they indicate that will/can change in the future. In any case, it works great, and turned what I felt was really kludgy e-mail integration, into a great e-mail experience. There was one exception though: Getting my fastmail.fm account configured. You might or might not run into problems setting up a fastmail account with the service.  If you do, check out this post.  Thanks to Inde66 on the forum for posting some great info!

Post via iPhone App

It seemed appropriate to try the App Store TypePad app, so consider this just a test. Nothing else to see here.