Non-user iPhone complaints Mar 29, 2010
I don't have an iPhone.  I'm not opposed to owning one in the future, but I refuse to switch cell phone providers just to get a cool phone.  Many billions of people apparently feel differently and are more than happy to fork over their $120/month to use a great phone on a crappy network.  Anyway, as an iPhone outsider, I have a few complaints about this silly little device: 
  1. Apps.  I understand what an iPhone App is, and I realize there are a lot of other people who also understand this, and there's some sort of exchange of money involved, which has a positive impact on our nation's economy.  That's great and all, but there are like eleventy jillion people who, like me, don't own an iPhone, so all this talk of Apps and App Stores and whatnot is simply meaningless.  It's one thing to have a mobile version of your website so non-iPhoners can play along.  But as soon as you create an App, you've just alienated approximately eleventy jillion people.
  2. SMS character limit.  Apparently the iPhone lets you send text messages that are longer than the industry standard 160 characters, which is fine and all because the messages are simply broken up into 160-character chunks, but which is pretty stupid for the countless (I've heard it's around eleventy jillion) people without iPhones, where these chunked text messages show up as separate (and often numerous) chunks, sent by some stupid iPhone user who doesn't understand how text messages work.  But this isn't a user issue; it's a software issue.  One simple workaround would be to show the user when their message is going to be split up, which would hopefully encourage them to be more concise.
  3. "Sent from my iPhone."  First of all, I don't care where your email comes from.  That goes for you too, Blackberry weirdos.  But I'll concede that there's occasionally value in knowing why an email doesn't contain complete sentences and sounds like you're mad at me.  But at least Blackberries are used by working folk.  Yes, iPhones can work with corporate email too, but honestly, who on earth has a work iPhone?  Like four people in Silicon Valley.  The rest of you are simply flaunting the fact that you own a coveted piece of technology.  Yes, I'm jealous.
Eleventy jillion and shrinking. #technology
Short pants Mar 29, 2010
I work with a guy who's about 6'3".  He's fairly tall, and his tallness is noticeable.  He also happens to be an executive, so he gets paid well for doing relatively little.  But he has a fairly significant wardrobe problem:  His pants are too short.  They barely extend to his shoes and frequently get stuck at the top of his man boots (another problem, but one that I'll overlook in this case).  Every day, he looks like a kid that grew out of his kid clothes, i.e., he looks like an adult idiot.  And since he's an executive, there's no question he can afford clothes that fit.  I have to go out of my way to avoid this guy for fear that I might eventually say something to him and lose my job.  Or get beat up by some man boots. #lifestyle