Jason Calacanis the CEO of Maholo put the case against Apple so succinctly. Every market they’ve owned (eg MP3s) they have destroyed through lack of innovation and lock in. They’re stringently anti-competitive and closed and hugely monopolistic.
Once you buy an Apple product you’re locked in for life and if you don’t. You’re locked out.
Read: Jason’s The Case Against Apple – whether you own an iphone or another Apple product or not it’s an eye opener.
A steering wheel for the iphone. What a joke. It seems that every man and their dog are trying to dream up some crazy accessory for the iphone. The saddest part is, if you own an iphone then there’s every chance you’re going to buy one.
Via The Escapist
We drew up a comparison chart of the Nokia 3310 a phone from the year 2000 vs the latest iphone 3GS. Like most iphone users you probably just upgraded from a similar specced phone so it may astound you to know that this phone actually has many features that the iphone doesn’t.
| Feature | iPhone | 3310 | Winner |
| Weight | 135 grams | 133 grams | 3310 |
| Built in games | - | 3 | 3310 |
| Total Sales | No idea ( 5? ) | 130 million | 3310 |
| Display | Shiny hard to see in sunlight | Highly visible in all light thanks to green backlight | 3310 |
| Customisable screen savers | - | √ | 3310 |
| WAP Browser | - | √ | 3310 |
As you can see the Apple iPhone is lacking many features (particularly Snakes) that many of today’s serious phone buyers really demand.
Here’s a fun video Omio put together on the iphone vs a Nokia 3210:
Apple in their infinite wisdom put a bluetooth chip in the iphone but then decided not to do anything with it. Apart from allowing you to use headsets.
Other smart phones usually have a plethora of bluetooth profiles enabled allowing anything from file transfer through to turning the phone into a modem. Here’s a typical set from one of the comparable smart phones out there at the moment. The Nokia N97. I’ve even been nice to the iPhone and left off the base Bluetooth features from the N97.
| Bluetooth Profile | iPhone | N97 |
| Bluetooth Stereo Headsets (A2DP) | √ | √ |
| A/V Remote Control (AVRCP) | √ | √ |
| AVDTP | - | √ |
| Imaging Profile (BIP | - | √ |
| Internet using your mobile (DUN) | - | √ |
| File Transfer (FTP) | - | √ |
| Hands Free HSP/HFP | - | √ |
| Joysticks/Mice/Keyboards (HID) | - | √ |
| Object Push (OPP) | - | √ |
| Phone Book Access (PBAP) | √ | √ |
| Personal Area Network (PAN) | √ | - |
| Sim Access (SAP) | - | √ |
| Service Discovery (SDAP) | - | √ |
As you can see the iPhone only supports a small subset of available Bluetooth profiles. Some of these features are incredibly rich like FTP transfer and DUN which is kind of like iphone tethering but allows any computer or device to use your phone as a broadband modem. Wirelessly. If you’re thinking of buying an iphone, you need to know what you’re going to lose. Man of us depend on a lot of these bluetooth features and losing them could make your experience very painful.
Apple keep on marketing the iPhone as an enterprise friendly alternative to the Blackberry and other business phones with features such as encryption and remote data destruction.
Despite ongoing concern that the iPhone is just not enterprise ready hundreds of companies and government organisations have already deployed the device amongst their workforce.
It turns out that may have been a very bad move. Not only can the encryption on an iphone 3GS be broken within minutes if an employees device is lost or stolen but “root kits” can also be deployed on a device allowing anyone in the world to connect to a device and do things such as copy data from a corporate network, intercept emails and even listen in to conversations and take photos or record video.
Someone physically stealing your phone, installing malicious software and returning your phone may seem far fetched but it seems there’s even a threat from Apple and the app store itself.
The iPhone does not have a security model like many other phones when it comes to applications. The only security put in place is the iTunes review process which only looks at what the app does. A malicious app could easily be written that gets past this gatekeeper by looking innocent. Fart app anyone? Once installed on your iphone it has access to everything. Your personal data, your camera, in fact everything any other app can do can be done. All without your approval.
If you’re thinking of using the iPhone as a business tool, or even a serious life management tool. Think twice.
