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22 Nov 2008 00:21
Today Apple has released new firmware v 2.2 for their iPhone. Of course immediately I have rushed to upgrade my phone, although I knew that I would loose my jailbreak and a few really useful apps (like Terminal, Scrobbler, Stumbler Plus and a few others).
Honestly I was tempted by the new wireless podcast download option — I am really tired of synchronizing over cable every morning to get the freshest episode of Buzz Out Loud to listen to it on my way to the office. In fact it really makes me mad that I need to connect the phone to my Mac to get new podcasts. Almost everyone hates it.
The blogs are full of the new firmware 2.2 reviews, but actually there are a few things I hate about the new iPhone.
Podcast sorting
In the previous iPhone version podcasts (in iPod) are ordered "fresh on top". Like in iTunes. In 2.2 however you get the newest podcasts at the bottom. Why?
Getting new episodes sucks
OK, so I am listing episodes of a particular podcast. I want to check if there are any new ones. Click and… it takes me to the iTunes Store? And there is no distinction between what I already have on my iPhone and what is really new. In fact you can download the episodes you already have without any notice.
And in iTunes Store the sorting is different — the freshest episodes are on top.
There is no way to "subscribe" to new podcasts from the phone — when you get episodes of new podcasts from the iPhone they do not sync back in iTunes. To subscribe to them you need to find the podcasts from iTunes on your computer again and subscribe to them.
Canceling downloading is counter-intuitive
I have started downloading an episode of a podcast. Whooo! Not the right one. How to cancel the download? You can pause it, but how to cancel? It took ma a few minutes — you have to slide your finger horizontally over a downloading episode in the "Downloads" tab.
Street view — why do I need to place a pin?
I do not really care about the street view — it is not available in my area. But I did want to try it and navigated a looong way to California. So how to enable it? It looks like you need to place a pin first! And remember to remove it later of course.
End of the world?
When you move to quickly in the Street View you can place yourself (for a quick moment) in The Matrix.
In general the update is nice, but I just do not understand why Apple made such bad decisions regarding the interface.
UPDATE 23 Nov 2008 After playing with the new firmware I need to admit I got used to the changes. I still think getting new episodes is non-optimal, but so far everything else seems to be more or less in place.
In fact this is what I like with Apple — they are not afraid of changing the interface, although some users (like me) can complain. But the changes are almost always positive and one can get used to it.
rating: 0, tags: firmware iphone itunes podcast
bo tak jest lepiej :]
I completely agree with what you say about the downloads. I really wish my phone would check for new episodes every hour & that if there was a new episode I could get a little star on the iPod app. Then going to the podcasts I could then click download and that it would download it there and then; not take me to the store but just download it; come on Apple, this is that you're meant to do!
Georgie Hammerton
http://www.mybloggywog.com
"In 2.2 however you get the newest podcasts at the bottom. Why?"
This is actually one of my favorite features. I've been waiting for them to do this for ages. I always listen to podcasts in sequential order. If i've missed 2-3 I can now listen to them in a row rather than have to back out to the menu between them.
totally agreed. i've hated how you can't listen to podcasts in sequential order without navigating to them. i hadn't noticed that they fixed this, but i couldn't be happier.
"Street view — why do I need to place a pin?"
because it needs to know where you want to start looking at street view. very rarely are you just going to scroll somewhere on the map and want to enable streetview. for example: you said that you scrolled a looong way to california, and couldn't get into streetview without dropping a pin first. a faster way would have been to search for a location in california (could be anything as generic as los angeles, ca) and a pin would be automatically dropped for you. then you enter streetview from here. makes total sense to me.
"End of the world?"
come on, what would you want them to do here? street view requires a decent amount of data to be sent to your phone. if it doesn't have the data yet, it needs to display something. just like google maps displays a blank grid until the data for the map loads. would you prefer a blank screen? at least the grid implies what's going on.
while the firmware will always be able to have improvements, it seems like you're being a little critical here. most of the things you're mentioning seem more like features then bugs.
The "slide horizontally to delete" feature is common across the system. You do the same thing in apps like Mail and others, wherever you have a scrolling list of things to delete.
Thanks for the comments!
OK, I need to admit that most of the changes are good, i.e. I can either understand them or get used to them. I did know that sliding an email horizontally reveals the "delete" option in Mail. So this is good.
I also realized that with the new sorting of podcasts I can listen "from oldest to freshest" so this is nice.
The Matrix (in Street View) is imho more a funny thing than a bug / issue, so I do not really mind, although I still thing that placing a pin to switch to the Street View is somehow artificial, but honestly I do not know how to make it work differently (e.g. 3-finger tap?).
The only thing right now that annoys me is about downloading the new podcasts. It should NOT take me to the iTunes store to get new episodes, it should be all done from within the iPod.
But besides all that — I think this is a very very good update. I wish they had some of the features from the beginning.
Oh, just one more thing that is IMHO seriously broken. When you restore the iPhone (from a backup), order of your icons is alphabetical — so probably you would get everything messed. Why cannot backup remember the order of icons / apps and apply it later after the sync? No idea. Otherwise I am impressed how backup works and how transparent it is (I messed with jailbreaking this time, so I had to use it).
Michał Frąckowiak @ Wikidot Inc.
Visit my blog at michalf.me