iPhone’s professional inadequacy

You may call me a late bloomer. At long last, weeks after the hype subsided, here I am, blogging about the iPhone. But I’m not about to join the hallelujah choir, if that’s what you think. Well, of course I’d like to have one, but I have to say that professionally the thingy has very little to offer – for someone like me, anyway.

You just have to love the design though, and I’m quite convinced of the iPhone’s qualities as… well, a gadget for entertaining purposes. I’d very much like to have one just for fun, if I had the time, that is, but my professional needs are such that the iPhone simply won’t do, and here’s why:

As a journalist I need a handy mobile camera with a resolution suitable both for web and print – although, when on an assignment, I usually bring a digital SLR, but that isn’t always the case when the need arises, which makes a quality mobile camera useful. The iPhone’s 2 MP camera just doesn’t cut it. What’s more, my compact Sony Ericsson has a flash, in addition to its 3.2 megapixels, which by today’s standards really isn’t much, even if it is better than the iPhone. So there.

Besides, what on earth posessed iPhone’s techies, who stuffed all kinds of whatchamacallit into their little gizmo, omitting ancient MMS functionality altogether? Certainly, there’s always email, but… really. Because it is ancient or simply because they haven’t got around to even think of MMS just yet? That’s what I’d like to know.

I’d like to be able to publish online on the fly, wherever I might be, necessitating a fullblown QWERTY keyboard – or keypad, as it were. Granted, I don’t have one on my current mobile, but the have-it-all iPhone definitely ought to. Apparently, having the cake – and being able to eat it, too, currently seems out of range, no matter what mobile you choose. My own choice, prioritising photo-friendliness, excludes a QWERTY keypad, while those who do offer such devices seem unable to come up with an adequate camera – whereas Apple fail to produce either on their iPhone (even if it indeed sports a virtual keypad). I’ve had a couple of QWERTY mobiles in my time, mind you, but with lousy cameras. Again, having the cake…

The iPhone does however offer WLAN, though, which I sorely miss on my photo-friendly Sony Ericsson K810i (though I have to tell you; that Xenon flash is a lifesaver), but so do mobiles with better cameras – or QWERTY keypads. Alas, all fail to offer the three combined. How hard can that be? We have entered the third millenium, the age of space tourism, haven’t we?