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My iPhone vs. My iGo

Last week, I gave in and bought an iPhone.  I did not get it because of its must-have cachet as a technocrati status symbol.  Rather, I got it because I did not have many other smartphone options in my little town in Germany.  This is despite the fact that T-Mobile is also marketing the G1.

Nonetheless, I am kind of disappointed with my purchase.  It is a neat toy and I am impressed by what it can do.  I am, however, really annoyed by what I can’t do with it.  For one, the firewire cables and docking station I have from my second-gen iPod Classic are not compatible, even though the plugs are the same.  Congratulations, Apple, you have made your product incompatible with a piece of wire.  Further, I can’t sync it with iTunes using the iPhone’s onboard Bluetooth connection.  Clearly, the point of this is to force me to buy additional new cables so I do not have to schlep the one that came with the iPhone with me.  That kind of bundling is to be expected.

However, what really upsets me is the fact that I cannot use my Bluetooth keyboard with the iPhone.  I have a really cool iGo Stowaway folding keyboard, which my wife got me as a present a few years ago.  The keyboard is about passport-sized (about twice as thick) and unfolds to a laptop-sized keyboard.  It’s really very handy.  However, the Bluetooth onboard the iPhone does not recognize the device and there are no apps for the keyboard in the App Store.  iGo’s website simply states that it is not compatible with the iPhone.  Obviously, I cannot load the software and drivers which came with the keyboard onto the iPhone and I am terrified that if I try to load a hack, Apple will brick my phone into a 200€ paperweight.

In many ways, my old Nokia N95 was a better, certainly more flexible, smartphone.

Insight:  It is an absurd result that I cannot use a standardized peripheral with my own computing device.  I have been using Apple products since 1982 (Apple II Plus, 32kb), but now, I am not purchasing another Apple product until I can do something as simple as hook-up my own keyboard to it.  In the meantime, there was this gem, via Guy Kawasaki.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 28th, 2010 at 12:59 pm and is filed under Cool Stuff, Pet Peeves. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

  • Steve Stroh

    Re: the change from Firewire on iPods to USB on iPhones. Understand your frustration, but I think that was Apple just giving in to the reality that Firewire has become a legacy port and going forward USB was where the momentum is… like when they gave up on LocalTalk in favor of Ethernet.

    Agreed WHOLEHEARTEDLY on the idiocy of not allowing the Apple Bluetooth keyboard to work with the iPhone. Fortunately, you won’t have to wait long. iPhone OS 4.0 will add this, and it’s due later this year. I’ve been waiting two years for this feature on my iPhone 3G.

  • http://kennethrcarter.com/CoolStuff Kenneth R. Carter

    Steve,

    Thanks for your comment and helpful information. I don’t mind so much that my iPhone did not come with a firewire (at least it did not come with a serial cable), but the fact that I cannot use my old ones annoys me.

    I am glad to hear that OS 4.0 will resolve this problem. I will hold my breath and will hopefully be able to end my boycott.

  • http://kennethrcarter.com/CoolStuff Kenneth R. Carter

    UPDATE: After two weeks with my new iPhone, I have found a few other things you cannot so with it. For one, it will not sync with MS Outlook 2002. The first time you sync it downloads contacts and appointments, but will not update them. The iTunes does not give an error message that it has not updated the iPhone, so the only way you know is when you start missing appointments. I guess that means I do not need to bring cable to the office. The iPhone will not let you sync book marks from Firefox. You cannot offload photos without additional software or sending them by MMS. You cannot load PDFs to the iPhone read except by email. Finally, something really cool I used to do with my old Nokia which I cannot do with the iPhone is to tether the onboard camera with a laptop and use it as a webcam.

    I conclude that the iPhone is a terrific media player, a decent mobile phone/Internet appliance, however, as a computing device or computer peripheral, it is a total wrote off. In fact, I took my iPhone back and tried to exchange it today. “Kein Chance.” Hopefully, the Bluetooth will work in OS 4.0.

  • Kenneth R. Carter

    UPDATE: I upgraded to OS 4.0. I am pleased to report that I was able to connect my iGo keyboard. In fact, I am typing on it now. Once I turned on the Bluetooth, it took about 90 seconds to pair the keyboard and iPhone. Why this innovative feature had to wait until the fourth generation of the software is beyond me. My Apple boycott is over.

  • Kenneth R. Carter

    UPDATE: I upgraded to OS 4.0. I am pleased to report that I was able to connect my iGo keyboard. In fact, I am typing on it now. Once I turned on the Bluetooth, it took about 90 seconds to pair the keyboard and iPhone. Why this innovative feature had to wait until the fourth generation of the software is beyond me. My Apple boycott is over.

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