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What The iPhone Needs: Part 2, Phone Mode Only

Posted August 27, 2008 10:57 AM by Hadley Stern
Categories: Opinions 

It’s called the iPhone right? Tell that to C.K. Sample III who recently had to reboot his iPhone just to make a phone call. It reminds me of a piece I recently wrote for Apple Matters, Is the iPhone the OS 9 of phones?.

Let’s be honest here, how many of you have to to reboot or reset your iPhone just to make a....call. I have a couple of times and it is a frustrating experience. Suddenly all those very cool applications, the iPod, GPS, and all the goodness that makes the iPhone the iPhone doesn’t matter. You just want to make a call!

Which brings me to Part 2 of my What the iPhone Needs, a phone mode only. In this mode all other functions would disappear, Mail, Twitterific, the iPod, everything leaving just the Phone application running. When you have a busy phone day and you need to make sure you can send and receive calls use the Phone mode.

Sure it may piss off some people who want to make out the iPhone is perfect. But in return, you’d be able to make that call.

What do you think, am I spot on? Or over-stating the case for a Phone mode? Tell me below.

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Comments

  1. I dunno, I’ve never had an issue with the phone.  I used to have occasional crashes, before the recent firmware updates. But I haven’t had a single crash or rebooted once since the last firmware update.

    For me, “it just works”.

    Posted by Bruce Dumes on August 27, 2008 12:00 PM

  2. I agree with Bruce.  I’ve never had to restart my iPhone just to use the phone.  I’m really happy with the stability (especially the current 2.02 firmware).

    Posted by John on August 27, 2008 12:31 PM

  3. Never had to reboot to make a phone call

    Posted by Mike on August 27, 2008 12:44 PM

  4. I have to reboot once to twice per week for that very reason.  Its not all that horrible.  I’d rather see in-phone or upgraded online multimedia message experiences.  I just hate going to AT&T’s “getmymessage” website and not being able to see the original size photo or have the ability to save it to the computer.

    Posted by Robbo on August 27, 2008 12:56 PM

  5. I would love to see why people crash a lot, and why people don’t crash that often. Surely something has to be conflicting there, or there’s a resource issue etc.

    Posted by Kel on August 27, 2008 4:47 PM

  6. I haven’t had to reboot very much either, but I have to admit I’d like to be able to switch on and off any of the services or rather any of the running processes.

    Posted by hen on August 27, 2008 5:40 PM

  7. i was having a lot of trouble before 2.0.2, but after that it’s been nearly perfect.

    i still want copy & paste--it’s daft that it’s a “low priority” considering it should be a standard feature. :(

    however, stability is rock solid now.  i’d recommend you restore your phone to default and try again. smile

    Posted by Rob Johnson on August 27, 2008 7:20 PM

  8. What you mean, surely, is that what the iPhone needs is software that works properly? Asking for a “phone-only” mode to avoid it doing things that might make it crash is sticking-plaster-think. Fix the bugs and you won’t need phone-only mode.

    How many other phones, even smart phones, do you know that need rebooting before you can make a call?

    I’ve never suffered from this personally.

    Posted by Steve on August 29, 2008 8:42 AM

  9. I guess that is what I was saying, Steve. An iPhone that doesn’t crash. But short of that I’d like a Phone only mode just-in-case.

    Posted by Hadley Stern on August 29, 2008 8:44 AM

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