WILLIAMEDIA

It’s time to update my wishlist for the iPhone alot has happened since I attended MacWorld in January 2008. I was there in San Francisco and while I was not in the same room with Steve Jobs I was able to be a part of a live broadcast in a nearby hotel which allowed me to listen and audience reaction different than just the common Apple consumer. I was in a room full of people who are in some way devoted to a the Mac but not just your average web designers. Some of the people there worked with Apple on the professional capacity and are a part of Apple product distribution around the world and Us Market. Their reaction by that information provided is a important one that differs from the regular fan boy that dedicate their lives to the mythical fruit silhouette logo. Well they did ooh and awe as I did at the shiny new products released, and when the price for rentals came out they did not have a volume level matching the new Macbook Air. While the new Macbook Air had not been tested as many gadget blogs have now they were innocent in happiness over a new addition to the product line rather than just another revision to already established product line.

Well on with my update of the iPhone WishList:
• Wireless Podcast updates
• Cut, Copy, and Paste
• Applications(waiting on the SDK)
• Apple Wireless Keyboard Support

Explanation: You will notice on my first list I did not include the complaint of more capacity because I figured Steve Jobs would pull the usual, and slowly increase capacity over time. Well he did well after MacWorld on a unsuspected day in February.(Via MacRumors ) I still would like the amount of space that was in my full size hard drive based iPod now called the “Classic”, but with todays high prices on flash memory in addition to Steve’s tradition in slow releases I will expect that in another year or two. The wireless keyboard support request is based on something that most people probably might never need. I currently have the Apple bluetooth wireless keyboard and use it everyday with my Windows XP PC. I would also like to use it with my only Mac computer, the 8GB iPhone. Do not confuse this request as a indirect complaint on the touch screen and its typing capabilities . I still continue to feel that today’s youth who are getting this latest round of instant cool devices will learn on new interaction and will not know the same feeling as the business types that have been typing on a tiny qwerty keyboard for years. I want Apple wireless keyboard support because it can be done. I bought the newly designed Apple keyboard on anticipation of this feature while also I wanted the small lightweight keyboard to lessen the space taken up by the old form of human to computer interaction device. This might seem a little toddler in its explanation but the Apple wireless keyboard uses bluetooth to communicate with the computer its paired with, so why not a bluetooth enabled phone that lacks a traditional human input device, a keyboard. I have been told that they are working on the support for the wireless keyboard, but have had some issues, this said by an Apple employee, so here I wait patiently.

Also it seems that Cut Copy and Paste a basic lesson in how to use content on your computer in a more efficient way is also causing some issues. Rumors have eluded to the fact that Steve prides on the iPhone being completely user friendly, and even though people have proved in video form that Cut Copy and Paste is possible on the unique device, the publicly given examples have required some level of complicated thought process for the everyday person to be able to use on a regular use of the touchscreen iPhone(Via MacRumors ). This is an important point to make considering recent information provided by Google that web searches through mobile browsers has increased 50 times thanks to the iPhone usability, credit for this is given to the fact that the iPhone has a fully capable Safari web browser, with the exception of its lack of Adobe’s Flash support.(Via MacRumors ) If Cut Copy and Paste is implemented wrong then the usability of the almost mythical wonder device could be a major downside on its already well documented list of negatives.

Lastly is the first thing listed above which is wireless podcast updates. Let me let you in on some of weekly podcast content I listen to which includes; Buzz Out Loud(CNET), Geekbrief.tv, Gadgettes(CNET), Loaded(CNET), Macbreak Weekly(TWIT.tv), and the list goes on. One thing to note is that I live in Dallas Texas which is on Central Standard Time. San Francisco, California where some of those podcasts are produced, is on Pacific Standard time, two hours behind me. What this means is when I leave the house in the morning if they haven’t uploaded the latest episode in the middle of the night like Leo Laporte does with This Week in Tech on Sunday night before the Monday morning commute, without this planning I could be stuck all day without the latest episode. Well I have to admit this is only a first world problem and is hardly anything to cry over, except the fact that iTunes is built right into the iPhone already. Apple has already made the first step in advancing digital music distribution with this integration. You can actually buy music impulsively just about anywhere you can find a Wifi spot which will be most Starbucks locations pretty soon(Via Apple ). I have already given up hope for video podcasts to be wirelessly updated due to their large size especially when encoded best for the large screen of the iPhone, but audio podcasts which can be larger than a single song on iTunes could very easily be updated using similar technology that’s used in the iPhone version of iTunes. I am pushing for this feature for several reasons as a dedicated listener to the new content category Podcasts and as a potential podcast creator/producer. Apple did us good when they added Podcasts into the iTunes store bringing a wide range of free content to the iPod without having their customers have to pay for it legally(Via theAppleBlog ). This was a big step for podcasts to become profitable and take their place along side TV, radio, Movies and well established music already at home on the iPod. Its time though for Steve to update his support of podcasting on the new device with instant updates of your subscribed podcasts. Not all podcasts require such instant distribution nor do all users of the iPhone need to have such independence from their laptops, but podcast with time sensitive information could grow in audience if people could update without the tether to their hope computer. I want to listen to Buzz Out Loud a Technology news podcast when the episode is released after midday here in Central Standard time Dallas. BOL as its nicknamed usually includes news from the day just released over the news wire and considering the fact that old media institutions such as the Cable Networks or Radios show usually don’t cater to my selective tech news interest i believe Apple should help in the empowering of such long tail media that is using cheaper and less government regulated distribution systems such as the internet. Not that I believe that they should be trying to tear down old media or wave the Revolution flag but its in their best interest at providing more content to the customer at a cheaper price. This is what sells helps sell iPods/iPhones which is the vast available media at such ease and low cost to the consumer. So I charge Apple again with the leadership of making media that increases their bottom line to bring live updates to your subscribed podcasts without the tether to the home computer.