Disruptive Telephony

Interesting post yesterday at ZDNet, "Apple seems to have forgotten the phone in the iPhone", where blogger Matthew Miller writes about his disappointment after 10 days of iPhone usage. Since I can't get an iPhone because of where I live, I've only very peripherally been following iPhone news (figuring that when I can eventually get one it will be improved by then).  Of course, you could not have missed the predictably huge initial reactions about the device being "magic", but now we are starting to see real and more honest appraisals as people actually get to work with the devices.  In Matthew Miller's case, here is his list of what the iPhone is missing related to telephony:

• Low volume speakerphone (basically useless at max volume through mono speaker)
• Mid volume speaker
• Tough to speed dial (at least 5 presses/slides to call one of your )
• No smart dial (filtering of contacts as you enter letters or numbers)
• Reception issues (full signal to no signal in same area)
• No instant messaging application
• Non-removable battery that cost $86 to replace from Apple
• Weak Bluetooth radio (profiles and reception with headset)
• No DUN (Bluetooth or cabled)
• No custom ringtones
• No MMS functionality
• EDGE only data even though AT&T has a national 3G network

He goes on to talk about how he does like it for some things (he had previously blogged about the iPhone at length here and here), but ultimately will be returning it to AT&T before his 14-day trial period expires.

It will be interesting to see what others think as they continue to use them - it would also be intriguing to see if you could get any stats on how many get returned by day 14 (not likely).  To me, if Apple did nothing else with the iPhone, it has made people think about how different a user interface could be, and for that I applaud them.   A common refrain I've seen from people reviewing their iPhones is that the iPhone is "fun".

In my book, anything that brings "fun" to the world of telephony is a good thing! :-)