The Macalope

The Macalope’s not sure why he’s bothering with this, but Robert Scoble links favorably to a list of supposed items that are wrong with the iPhone and then adds his own items.

If the Macalope may respond…

1. “How do you operate your phone under a table at a meeting”? This is exactly why Apple’s design is better than Microsoft’s. The five jackasses who need to do that — instead of paying attention to the meeting — can keep stroking their Blackberrys under the table.
2. A closed system is disappointing, but it does have the advantage of more tightly controlling the user experience (well, at least one could argue that) and may have been a cost of getting the Cingular deal done (not that anyone’s doing handsprings over that). So this point has some merit.
3. Cingular-only in the U.S. is a drawback but, hey, you wan’ an iPhone or not? Eh? Apple ain’t got all day, buddy. Got decisions to make. Time’s a-wastin’.
4. Ah, it’s vaporware. Yes, it’s nice that no other company in the industry announces products before they’re ready to ship. Cough. Like one Scoble used to work for. Cough. Quite frankly, for some of the stuff he’s written in the past, Scoble should be barred from ever using the term or linking favorably to a piece that accuses anyone other than Microsoft of announcing vaporware.
5. Both Kedrosky and Scoble list the iPhone’s price as $599. Cute. It starts at $499, bitches, and please point to another device with the same feature set that costs less at either price point.
6. Apple lists the battery life while playing video at 5 hours, not the 2 Scoble claims. Several commenters called him out on this and he said he’s “going off of what people are telling me here at CES” (not that they might have an axe to grind) but will correct it if someone provides a link because he can’t be bothered to go to apple.com/iphone. To be sure, it won’t really get 5 hours, but 2? Ooh, those grapes they’re serving at CES are sour.
7. Apple went with the largest carrier in the U.S. (Cingular) and the most ubiquitous technology (GSM). It’s not an everything-to-everyone device that uses every niche technology including your personal favorite. You were expecting something else from Apple? It also doesn’t have a floppy drive, PS/2 adapter or DVD/RAM. Sorry!
8. As David Pogue points out, the camera also benefits from the ability to frame your picture in a large screen. That’s at least a draw without even getting into what you can actually do with your picture after that.
9. Scoble complains that at “$600″ it should have GPS. Please point to the device that has all the features the iPhone has and GPS. What about an FM tuner? A compass? Little tweezers and a toothpick? Speaking personally, the Macalope won’t buy a “$600″ device unless it has a corkscrew.

Finally, Scoble doesn’t mention the thing that kicks every other phone and the Zune’s butt up and down the street: the interface. All anti-iPhone arguments that do not mention the interface should be considered trolling.

UPDATE: In comments, Scoble says he still intends to buy an Apple iPhone, so you can temper your reading of the above with that. He also says that if Microsoft had shipped this phone we’d be deriding it as the worst phone ever shipped. Again, the sourness of those grapes, but the Macalope would posit that Microsoft is inherently incapable of shipping this product at this time. If they were, it would have (or should have) been the Zune.