Why I don’t have an iPhone
I admit it publicly - I am an Apple fan, who may sometimes be blinded by glam of their products. I really enjoy my Macs and adore my iPod Classic, which holds the whole iTunes library. I was as excited as everyone else when iPhones were announced. But unlike many of bloggers out there, who were running wild to Apple stores worldwide to get their own phone, I still don’t have an iPhone, even if I sincerely think it’s a revolutionary device that changed the landscape of smartphone industry. I can explain why - and some of my reasoning might seem strange for those of you living in big countries with long history of using Apple products.
The most obvious reason that is often mentioned by many bloggers, is abysmal battery life of iPhone. I belong to the camp that thinks one day of standby time is not enough. I like not to bother with chargers for as long time as possible, ideally weeks. I still remember Nokia 5110, which was best Nokia phone ever because of two things - excellent menu, and even better battery life. Battery should last at least three days. Of course, this is my private opinion and many may argue it’s a matter of taste and self-organization, and even if it’s a big discomfort, it can be tolerated in exchange for functionality the device provides.
Other minor thing is impossibility to send MMS. This is plain silly in my opinion. Why it is not possible to send an MMS when device is capable to do much more advanced things?
Putting minor issues aside, the main rant is about distribution of the phone and how different is iPhone real experience in different countries. I don’t really understand why Apple chooses exclusive partners in the countries where their phone is officially distributed. I am not going to trade my operator because of any even most advance phone - why my operator can’t increase iPhone userbase by legally selling phone to me?
Well, even the last argument could be compromised, given my brand awareness and belief in Apple products’ superiority. But as a real IT geek, I am pissed off by the fact of absence of AppStore in my country. Without possibility to extend phone’s functionality with 3d-party software, the device itself is less useful than its jail-broken variety.
I live in a small country - Estonia - and size of the country is both its advantage and its curse. In terms of variety of goods available the small size is a curse. A lot of cool stuff never gets officially imported, because producers don’t consider our market any significant to put any effort in distributing their goods to this corner of the world. Obviously, the same thing happens in case of Apple’s AppStore (and iTunes Store as well). I might understand that multi-billion dollar company is short on money to create an Estonian version of stores. But why not to allow usage of other stores, but paying with credit card issued by some Estonian bank? When I discussed this with friends, some suggest that Apple has fear of credit card fraud. I dismiss this as a total bullshit - there are countries with much worse history of cybercrimes, who are still enjoying comfort of AppStore and iTunes Store.
Well, on some forums you can find information how to hack this limitation using a backdoor in registration process. But I don’t want to add a semi-legal practice to the list of drawbacks that iPhone already has.
Apple, please, treat all your customers equal - open proper AppStores in all countries where phone is distributed. Otherwise, iPhone will still be more iVanity than anything else. Currently, HTC+Window Mobile is (sic!) much more open platform (in addition to decent look and better battery life), and only their high prices prevent people of prefering them to iPhones, because besides Nokia, there are no real competitiors for these two on the smartphone market of small countries.