Girl Developer's Review of the iPhone, the One We've All Been Waiting For?

Yesterday I was completely dead in the water. My mobile phone is my only phone (a clear indicator that I’m part of generation 2.0…. if you have a house line get off the internet immediately Prodigy called, you’re over your bandwidth limit this month and they’re going to charge you another $9.99 if you don’t hang up… and if you say it’s for your kids tell them Raffi called and he says “Baaaaaby Beluuuuga.” every 5 year old has a cell phone now) ANYWAY, my iPhone wouldn’t charge, wouldn’t turn on, nada. I sent smoke signals to the Apple store to set up an appointment and headed on down there. I was cranky, the store was almost closed, and I was 10 minutes late because I had to stop for gas. Long story short the guy looks at my phone with one of those things the Dr’s use to look in your ear and determined that water had gotten into it and it must be replaced. $249 later I have a new phone (I know, I know, don’t even say it, July 11).

All this got me thinking, I haven’t told you guys about how close I am to my dang phone. There is nothing I love more now than standing in line, or on the train, and listening to Bill Simmons, and checking my MySpace, and Facebook. I love being able to find recipes in the supermarket. I like being able to pretend I have something better to do when I’m uncomfortable around people. All these things make the iPhone invaluable. It is a rockstar phone and I highly recommend it.

So what would this article be without a review of the Dev material? Ok, so I’m doing this as I write, I just registered as a iPhone Developer, so let’s get iStarted. Well, I take that back, apparently you need to have a STOONAD Mac. However, let’s just take a look at “Hello World” at least after I check out the text. There is a main file, two delegates, and two MVCs. The crux of the app is in here:

 

- (void)applicationDidFinishLaunching:(UIApplication *)application {

   

    // Set up the view controller

    MyViewController *aViewController = [[MyViewController alloc] initWithNibName:@"HelloWorld" bundle:[NSBundle mainBundle]];

    self.myViewController = aViewController;

    [aViewController release];

   

    [[UIApplication sharedApplication] setStatusBarStyle:UIStatusBarStyleBlackOpaque];

   

    // Add the view controller's view as a subview of the window

    UIView *controllersView = [myViewController view];

    [window addSubview:controllersView];

    [window makeKeyAndVisible];

}

 

 

On startup the delegates receive message that the application has started, which kicks off the controllers that show the “Hello World” and we’re out. I didn’t go too in depth, but Objective-C seemed to have a lot of familiar characteristics. Here is my thing about iPhone development: Yes, its something cool to learn, but what’s in it for ME??  All of us do this for a living, no? As far as I can see there is not advertising besides “Made By: “ Why would I make an application that makes Apple money and me nothing… I mean there is bragging rights, if you’re in high school or college it’s a great way to get your hands dirty (when you’re not using the other ways)… Unless you are advertising for an existing application, you’re donating your time to The Man, I don’t still get why everyone says Microsoft is the beast.

   There are some changes that NEED to be made. Some of them are being made, like the GPS. Has anyone tried the existing navigation (the one that uses triangulation with cell towers to figure out where you are)? I think it’s just F-ing with me sometimes. I would do better driving with a globe and a compass in the passenger’s seat, so thank god they are changing that. Some things are inefficient about the web access…. Like, I really need it to remember my logins, even if you need to ask me about each one. Or store them in a repository of logins that I could click on when I need them. Tapping away on that little keyboard is tedium, esp since the cookies aren’t persistent. Also, the need to figure out a way for my purse to stop calling people. I think after you hang up a call it should take you to the home page. Also, ummm, has anyone else noticed you can’t send or receive picture texts? This may not be a big deal to you, but my friends need me to be able to rate future MySpace default pictures in real time. Everytime I say something about being able to do something on my phone like surf or email they say “Yeah, but you can’t even send picture messages” as if I’m walking around with a VCR in my purse. Lastly, apps-wise I haven’t found anything super awesome… but I like the baseball one, and I’ve played with some other ones. The games aren’t that dynamic, there are some cool random tools like a Domain Name finder and a program to search for genetci defects?

Let’s end with the worst things about the 3G (besides the fact that I just bought a new-old model and I’ll have to up/downgrade in a month.) Everyone is freaking out about the $10 cost increase, I don’t think it’s that big of a deal. AT&T is a lot cheaper than Verizon. The $10 isn’t going to kill anyone, where they are REALLY going to get you is the App Store in your Home Screen. Let me tell you I used to be the biggest offender of being bored and downloading some games on my phone. They aren’t going to just have games, they are going to have every app some nerd created for them, and this time they are charging. When you look at that bill THEN you will be freaking. I’m kind of bummed that now EVERYONE will have an iPhone and I wont look cute but sophisticated in a mysterious way anymore. I’ll be “just another a-hole with an iPhone”. I think that’s the real moral here.

 

 UPDATE: I found an advertisement on one of my iPhone apps I put on my home screen. So, this article is 10% accurate and 80% funny. Totally worth it if you ask me.