Traveling for 2 weeks on business taught me a lot about my iPhone.  The big lesson from my recent European trip is that the iPhone is not a viable mobile phone for business use. Here are a few simple changes for iPhone 3.0 that could go a long way to making the iPhone an effective business tool.

E-mail:This is the part where recovering Blackberry users usually gripe about the lack of a physical keyboard. But having tried the Android, combining a full screen and keyboard leads only to confusion and a fat phone.  The fix here is much simpler. Simply allow use of the e-mail keyboard in landscape (wide) mode. This will allow more space between the keys and avoid fat finger mistakes.  Typing on a touchscreen is slow enough. Typing every third word twice is unbearable.  Landscape capability already is offered is Safari. There also is an application called TouchType, however you need to work in the application and then upload to e-mail.

Keyboard Short Cuts: Cut and paste has to be at the top of the list. The ability to avoid typing large tracts of text would go a long way to alleviate the worst pain from the small keyboard.  A few standard Blackberry features would also help.  An option to delete the previous text from a reply e-mail is a really handy method of avoiding adding multiple names from scratch.  Also, the Blackberry feature where holding a letter capitalizes it would speed typing.

Background Processing: When the iPhone first came out, it was considered amazing that web applications could even be performed on a mobile phone.  However, the recently announced Palm Pre has upped the ante with  the ability to run multiple functions simultaneously. Apple has resisted adding this capability, claiming it would drain the battery.

The battery is the Achilles heel of the iPhone. If you see someone who walks in the room looking at foot level, he is an iPhone user looking for an elictric outlet or a foot fetishist. Even without using Wi-Fi, my phone can’t make it through a full day of regular use. The prospect of even less battery life inspires only dread.

While a new battery won’t be a part of iPhone 3.0, if Pre-envy is what it takes to get Apple to improve the battery on the iPhone, bring it on. Otherwise, trust me, the person holding the iPhone really is looking for an electric outlet.

Written by Rob Adler

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Tags: Apple, AT&T, Blackberry, iPhone, iPhone 3G, Mobile World Congress, Vantage Communications

This entry was posted on Friday, March 13th, 2009 at 11:51 am and is filed under Vantage Communications, Wireless and Mobile, iPhone. 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.