iPhone 3G Question..

Factual Questions
21

[QUOTE=Sunspace]
Can it be set to different languages? And what happens if you type more than one language in a sentence?
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You can change the language, and it comes with the ability to type accented characters (press and hold a character to see the choices). But the language seems to only control the messages from the OS, and not the auto-correct dictionary.

I have a feeling they must have a French auto-correct dictionary for models sold in France, or I’d get really pissed off having to tell it every time that “est” is not a typo for “eat”.

22

[QUOTE=Red Barchetta]
Glad to hear you’re coming around – the iPhone guru knew you would :wink:

[/QUOTE]

I know, I am such a follower. :wink:

The texting is going to take a little “letting go”. I have been using the back space key a lot, though my speed has picked up more then what it was yesterday.

I am started to really like it. Exspecially since I downloaded a bunch of free games and got some free radio station on it. I thought, though, that I could save a YouTube Video on it and replay it when I wanted to vs going on the actual site to watch it. Guess you can’t do that. Once I get the internet back I am going to try to load a movie or show on it and see how that goes.

I adapt. It may take me a bit, but I adapt. :smiley:

23

Here’s a cool little trick I just learned. When you’re typing in a web address, and it doesn’t end in .com, hold down on the “.com” button, and a bunch of options will pop up, like .org, .net, .edu…

Glad you’re taking to the iPhone… I’ll be swapping out my 1st Gen for the 3G in a week or two. Can’t wait.

24

[QUOTE=Red Barchetta]

Oh, and here’s a tip regarding the touch-screen keyboard: Don’t worry about mistakes. The iPhone uses a really cool/intelligent word recognition system where it automatically guesses what you meant to type, even if you hit the wrong key. Granted, it’s not perfect, but it works amazingly well, and will vastly speed up your typing – so don’t hit delete every time you miss a keystroke =P
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The problem I have with this is that it guesses right about 1/3 of the time (lower if you miss an early letter), and if it fails, you’ve added more characters to backspace over (the reposition-cursor thing is much slower than just backspacing) – meaning it’s great when it works, but it usually doesn’t work and thus by “trusting” it, I’m making more work for myself.

Also, not all the apps seem to use the intelligent keyboard, and of the ones that do, only some of them seem to get, say, names and places from my Contacts. It’s frustratingly inconsistent, one of the few things I hate about my iPhone (along with only the narrow “vertical” keyboard being available in most apps).

25

[QUOTE=cmyk]
Here’s a cool little trick I just learned. When you’re typing in a web address, and it doesn’t end in .com, hold down on the “.com” button, and a bunch of options will pop up, like .org, .net, .edu…
[/QUOTE]

Other tricks:

  • Holding down a letter key will give you foreign/accented versions of that letter after a few seconds.

  • Pressing the space bar twice will give you a period followed by a space, particularly handy in the keyboards where period is hidden.

26

[QUOTE=TimeWinder]
The problem I have with this is that it guesses right about 1/3 of the time (lower if you miss an early letter), and if it fails, you’ve added more characters to backspace over (the reposition-cursor thing is much slower than just backspacing) – meaning it’s great when it works, but it usually doesn’t work and thus by “trusting” it, I’m making more work for myself.

[/QUOTE]

Umm, type better? :slight_smile: I’ve found it’s at least 90% accurate for me, and I’m not quite sure what you mean by the reposition-cursor being slower than backspace – you just place the cursor where you want. Quick and easy.

27

[QUOTE=Red Barchetta]
Glad to hear you’re coming around – the iPhone guru knew you would :wink:

Oh, and here’s a tip regarding the touch-screen keyboard: Don’t worry about mistakes. The iPhone uses a really cool/intelligent word recognition system where it automatically guesses what you meant to type, even if you hit the wrong key. Granted, it’s not perfect, but it works amazingly well, and will vastly speed up your typing – so don’t hit delete every time you miss a keystroke =P
[/QUOTE]

Yeah, but it always turns my name into Lobby, so it has drawbacks.

28

[QUOTE=Drain Bead]
Yeah, but it always turns my name into Lobby, so it has drawbacks.
[/QUOTE]

Odd. I do know that words can be added to its dictionary, and that it remembers the ones you use most frequently. You could always try changing your name :wink:

29

I am liking the app Pandora, though it is annoying when I am listening to it and get a text… when I go to respond to it… it shuts off the program. More of an annoyance of the program then it is the iPhone it self.

30

[QUOTE=BrknButterfly]
I am liking the app Pandora, though it is annoying when I am listening to it and get a text.. when I go to respond to it.. it shuts off the program. More of an annoyance of the program then it is the iPhone it self.
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Actually, it’s the iPhone itself, not Pandora (or any other iPhone app). Apple, in all their wisdom, has decided that the iPhone doesn’t need applications that run in the background - that is, programs that will keep running even though you’re doing something else, like texting or talking on the phone or whatever. There’s no support for it in the iPhone SDK, meaning that there’s no way to write an application for the iPhone that will keep running in the background regardless of what you’re actively doing with the phone.

It’s been pissing off a lot of developers - it’s a bad limitation IMO.

31

[QUOTE=Athena]
Actually, it’s the iPhone itself, not Pandora (or any other iPhone app). Apple, in all their wisdom, has decided that the iPhone doesn’t need applications that run in the background - that is, programs that will keep running even though you’re doing something else, like texting or talking on the phone or whatever. There’s no support for it in the iPhone SDK, meaning that there’s no way to write an application for the iPhone that will keep running in the background regardless of what you’re actively doing with the phone.

It’s been pissing off a lot of developers - it’s a bad limitation IMO.
[/QUOTE]

Didn’t they say at the WDC that background processes will be enabled later this year?

Considering how every single developer now seems to want their program (or some representative from their company - Adobe Updater, QTTask, etc.) running at start-up and in the background on my PC, I can only imagine what would happen if they allowed whoever they wanted to make their processes run at start-up and in the background on the iPhone. To me it’s more important that it work as a quick and responsive phone than that it necessarily have an always-on RSS reader or messenger application.

Considering how (sometimes) slow and (for some) buggy the 2.0 software already is, I can’t blame them for holding out a bit.

32

[QUOTE=Omoikane]
Didn’t they say at the WDC that background processes will be enabled later this year?
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No. Apple created the Push Notification Service to allow applications the opportunity to have a kinda-sorta background-like operation for apps that need to be able to notify the user of something even when they’re not running. (Alarms, incoming messages, etc.) Steve is still pretty adamant about disallowing background operation.

Athena - It isn’t that Steve thinks they don’t need background services, it’s that he doesn’t want to spoil the “experience” of using the iPhone with countless background tasks running that could bring the system down to a crawl. He likened such sluggishness to Windows Mobile – and having used WinMo extensively, he does have a point. I do however think it should be left up to the user to manage their background tasks, even despite the fact that I know the majority of users aren’t even going to understand what a background task is or why their iPhone is bogging down so much. (How many people do you personally know that keep installing useless crap on their device because they think it’s useful? You know, crap like Zwinky, various toolbars, apps that claim to keep your system free of malware but also deliver ads, etc. I know plenty, and they never understand why you shouldn’t install stuff unless you know exactly what it does and have a legitimate use for it, and not just because you think it’s kinda neat and/or doing you a favour by supposedly making your life easier.)

TimeWinder - Remember that the word suggester basis what it thinks you want to type both on close dictionary matches and the proximity of your finger to the letters surrounding the one you intended to hit. It will typically pick the letter your finger was closest to and then try and match from the dictionary based on that. If you hit R but were off to the left far enough that it could have been E, the iPhone’s going to pick up the E as being the one it “thinks” you could also have been aiming at. The only solution is to adjust your typing to get more accurate at hitting the keys you want. It took me a while to get used to it too, but eventually I’ve found that it’s actually pretty accurate even when I do miss keys.

33

I know why Steve doesn’t want background processes running (even on desktops apps that insist on being loaded on startup tend to bog things down). However, I don’t think the answer is to ban them all. There should be a way to keep apps running if the user wants to - the Pandora example is a good one. Who wants their music to go away if a text message comes in?

The notification stuff is a good start, but it’s not the entire solution.

34

[QUOTE=Athena]
I know why Steve doesn’t want background processes running (even on desktops apps that insist on being loaded on startup tend to bog things down). However, I don’t think the answer is to ban them all. There should be a way to keep apps running if the user wants to - the Pandora example is a good one. Who wants their music to go away if a text message comes in?
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So what do you propose? You have to provide a path to background, as well as a barrier to naïve overuse of background. If you need an extra blue book, raise your hand and a proctor will come around.

To expand on what Mindfield said: when users overload their iPhones with gewgaws that turn it into molasses, do you think they’ll say “hey, I put too much crap on my phone” or “hey, iPhone sucks and is slow”?

35

Matchochist is the same true with the iPod that is in the phone? I understand that Pandora is an app, but where the iPod is a product of apple, does that too still shut down when you work with something else on the phone?

I haven’t load any of my songs on to it yet, so I’m not sure if that is different.

36

[QUOTE=Athena]
I know why Steve doesn’t want background processes running (even on desktops apps that insist on being loaded on startup tend to bog things down). However, I don’t think the answer is to ban them all. There should be a way to keep apps running if the user wants to - the Pandora example is a good one. Who wants their music to go away if a text message comes in?

The notification stuff is a good start, but it’s not the entire solution.
[/QUOTE]

Naturally nobody does, and yes, there should probably be exceptions in certain circumstances for background operation. However, it can’t be a carte blanche thing.

Consider the average Joe User, who maybe installs a background IM client or two. Then they add, say, MobileScrobbler so they can scrobble their music to last.fm as they listen. Then they add video wallpaper that runs in the background of the springboard, then video wallpaper that runs on the lock screen, then a “today” type screen that also runs on the lock screen that shows your current appointments, birthdays, headlines, etc., then they run a skinning app to change icons, a customize app to change the behaviour of the device on many levels, and then a call monitor to screen incoming calls and compares them to a blacklist to decide whether or not to let the call through, and then an app that adds OSX Stacks-like functionality to the bottom dock, and then…

…and then they blame the device for being so damn slow without even considering that it’s their own fault for installing so many background processes.

And lest you think this unrealistic, understand that every single one of these background apps (and more) are presently available to the iPhone/Touch jailbreak scene (the hack scene that opens the devices up to third party development well outside of Apple’s SDK restrictions). The difference though is that the jailbreak scene is heavily populated by tech savvy folks who know what they’re getting into when they jailbreak and install apps like this, so they know if the system bogs down it’s because of something they installed and are currently running in the background. I can confirm that the video wallpaper app alone bogs your device down enough that scrolling through pages of apps on Springboard/Summerboard becomes noticeably more jerky.

Introduce that to Joe User at large who has to read the manual to learn how to use Mobile Safari, though? That’s asking for piles upon piles of complaints, tech support calls, and outright returns because they’ll blame the device for being so slow, not understanding that it was their own quest to pimp their device out with tons of background processes that caused the slowdown, as Mathochist pointed out.

Remember that the average user is the same sort of person who will gleefully install everything the Web asks them to and then can’t understand that having 76 items in your startup.ini, most of which are superfluous, unnecessary, or downright malicious, is not a good thing.

I do think Apple should evaluate which apps get permission to run in the background on a case-by-case basis, but they will have to be very selective about it so that there aren’t a million such apps floating around the App Store just waiting for some poor sap to install every single one of them.

37

[QUOTE=BrknButterfly]
Matchochist is the same true with the iPod that is in the phone? I understand that Pandora is an app, but where the iPod is a product of apple, does that too still shut down when you work with something else on the phone?

I haven’t load any of my songs on to it yet, so I’m not sure if that is different.
[/QUOTE]

Yes. The iPhone SDK serves both the iPhone and iPod Touch, and is therefore subject to the same rules and restrictions.

38

[QUOTE=Mindfield]
Yes. The iPhone SDK serves both the iPhone and iPod Touch, and is therefore subject to the same rules and restrictions.
[/QUOTE]

Well doesn’t that just suck.

39

[QUOTE=BrknButterfly]
Matchochist is the same true with the iPod that is in the phone? I understand that Pandora is an app, but where the iPod is a product of apple, does that too still shut down when you work with something else on the phone?
[/QUOTE]

I think Mindfield may have misunderstood. Or I have. You’re asking about the iPod functionality on iPhone? Yes, that continues working in the background, and it’s allowed to do that because (a) you’re right that people want their music to keep playing and (b) Apple designed that program itself so it knows exactly how much of a burden it will be.

Note, though, that it’s pretty much the only one of Apple’s applications that does work in the background. Even MobileSafari actually shuts down (and writes a file saying which URLs it had open) when you leave it.

40

Hey, I’m not saying that background processes can’t become issues - I’ve seen the crap that people install without even knowing it. I’m just sayin’ that making it so NO background processes can be run isn’t the greatest solution. Yes, people are going to bitch if their iPhones become slow due to too many processes running. But people are already bitching about only being able to run one app at a time.

I just think there should be some common ground. Maybe allow one or two background processes at a time, or come up with a nice UI that tells people they can’t have 5 gazillion things running at once AND have a fast iPhone. It’s not that hard of a concept to get across, I don’t think - most people can understand that the more stuff a gadget does, the slower it runs. The problem with Windows et. al. is that it tends to hide a lot of the services & tasks that are running all the time.

I guess what I’m saying is regardless of what Steve Jobs thinks, a task manager doesn’t have to be a Big Bad Scary thing. A nice little UI that makes it very apparent that running more than a few things at a time isn’t that difficult for people to use & understand.