My first requests
Like Chris, I’ve been using the iPhone for a few hours now, and although I’m quite impressed, I have a few quibbles. (This isn’t my “Obvious Features Missing from the iPhone” list; I’ll get to that in a bit; this is the “I wish this worked a bit differently” list.)
No text selection: If you want to delete a block of text, you have to position the cursor to the right of that text and then hold down the delete/backspace button until all the characters are deleted. Fine if it’s just a word or two; stinky if you want to delete a paragraph or two (say, in an email reply — see below). Being able to select text seems like a no-brainer feature.
No copy/paste: Want to copy text from an email, text message, or Web site to another email or to a Note? Is your login name the same as your email address on a Web form? You’d think you could copy and paste, but that’s unfortunately not an option. (Which makes me feel a bit better about not being able to select text…not.)
Mail defaults to “reply on top and include everything” When you reply to a message in most modern email clients, you can select the text you want to include in the reply. No dice on the iPhone (see above note about not being able to select text). You also don’t have the option of automatically having your reply text placed below the quoted text — a major email faux pas for me. (I’m not trying to start the endless, near-religious, “top-post vs. bottom-post” debate here; I’m just saying it should be an option.)
No “home page” in Safari When you switch to Safari, it shows the last page you were browsing. When you open a new Safari window, no page is loaded; you need to tell Safari where to go. I think both behaviors are the right ones. The problem is that if I regularly want to go to a particular Web page, there’s no “Home Page” setting or button; I need to bookmark the desired page and then access that page through the Bookmarks screen, which, though functional, takes a few steps. I want a Home Page feature just like “real” Safari.
Minor issues? Perhaps. But I’ve already encountered them enough that they bug me.
Category: Musings
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Comments (14)
I'd like a period on the keyboard without having to go to the number keyboard.
I'd also like to have more than one smtp server to choose from. I'm not at my home Wi-Fi all the time.
Posted by John Mims | June 30, 2007 4:29 PM
I kind of like the fact it doesn't have a homepage. That way it doesn't start to load every time I open safari. But it would be a nice option.
Posted by Ben | June 30, 2007 7:48 PM
No text selectiion, copy, delete, cut, paste is a deal breaker for me. This seems so incredibly stupid not to have--this is apple right? Didn't they basically invent, or at least popularize the concept?
Posted by Jack | July 1, 2007 2:43 AM
I'd like Mail to have a bcc feature. When I'm out of my office but responding to clients, I like to send myself a blind copy of the message for my archives when I return to my office.
Posted by Nora Rubinoff | July 1, 2007 10:23 AM
I want the iphone to work natively with the basic business apps on a smart phone. i.e., calendar, contacts, tasks and emails. I feel like by switching to the iphone one has to go back to the late 90s where the phone-pda had to be manually synched with your desktop contacts, tasks, calendar etc....i think apple has enough software talent to figure out how to do this OTA...
Posted by Hemant Virkar | July 1, 2007 9:03 PM
I'd like to see the contacts app available directly on the main screen withought having to go to the telephone menu.
Posted by Hemant Virkar | July 1, 2007 9:05 PM
Like many others i have been now using my iPhone for over 24 hours now. All in all i really like the interface and the ease of navigation. I hope apple comes out with a software update soon that addresses some of the limitations. I would like to have an applciation that allows you to track your to-do's
Posted by Hemant Virkar | July 1, 2007 9:11 PM
There is a simple workaround to create a sort of Home Page.
Just leave Page One open to your favorite site and use Pages 2-x for routine surfing. Safari will always open to Page One.
In fact, unlike the desktop Safari, you can have multiple Home Pages this way.
-dan
Posted by Dan H | July 2, 2007 9:16 AM
This list just about covers it for me. The integration with Outlook is weak. I've had to move all my notes and tasks into the calendaring so they sync. I cant seem to create folders in the email application to somehow organize and archive my emails. Over all it has some cool new features however I feel like I went back to my first pda in many respects. I'm real anxious for iPhone 2, "the re-try".
Posted by zshallr | July 3, 2007 5:22 PM
The lack of copy/paste and BCC in email is a major annoyance. Since there is no formatting, I can't get my email signature to match the one I use on my PC. A good workaround would be to copy it out of an email and paste it, but....
Posted by Kelly | July 9, 2007 7:39 AM
Parts of synching with iTunes are nasty. I hate how I can't just drag a song, playlist or movie to the iPhone library the same way I can with an iPod. Having to synch to a library (like with TV shows) is lame and the filters provided to restrict that synch to certain files aren't enough to hit just wanting to put one random episode of something on the phone. Also only being able to synch one iTunes machine with the phone blows too. I keep content on three separate macs, but I'm now forced to make one my "master" so that I can use my iPhone with it. Since I'll want that on the go, it will have to be my Macbook which is a little tight on capacity.
Aside from this, I love the device, but no copy/paste or text selection is just ludicrous. Surely, Apple must be planning that for an update some time soon. For bloggers (which I think is a big scenario for the iPhone) this is like backward time travel. Not all time machines are good...
Posted by Rob | July 9, 2007 12:33 PM
I'd love to be able to take a photo that I received as an email attachment into the iPhone photo library.
Posted by iMatt | July 10, 2007 10:39 AM
Oh, yes, I'd also like some of the typing features to mimic Blackberry--for example, I'd like a period to appear automatically after two spaces are types. Much quicker than toggling the special characters keyboard and selecting it from there, and also easier even than David Pogue's nifty period shortcut.
Also, I'd like a shortcut for typing "it's" without toggling the special characters keyboard. I understand that "he'll" and "we'll" can be created by typing "helll" and "welll" respectively.
Finally, I'd like an easy way to reject a recommended change, so that it is not adopted automatically when the space bar is hit. Sometime I mean what I type, though admittedly this isn't always the case.
Posted by iMatt | July 10, 2007 10:43 AM
Finally, I'd like an easy way to reject a recommended change, so that it is not adopted automatically when the space bar is hit. Sometime I mean what I type, though admittedly this isn't always the case.
Posted by iMatt | July 10, 2007 10:43 AM
--------------------------------------
I hear that! I honestly was sending a business email from my iPhone and typed the word, "ooops". Well, I didn't realize it, but the auto-correction changed it to "poops". Seriously!
I had some explaining to do later, as to why I wrote "poops" in a business email. Yikes!
I have since made it a policy to always proof my emails before sending them (not a bad policy in general anyway).
'kito
Posted by Markito | July 10, 2007 12:33 PM