I have written about the lack of Mac software to effectively manage the setting of my Sony Ericsson phone before. And it is no secret that I am very much looking forward to the day Apple introduces its own version of a phone (just to have to wait another 12 months until it’ll be available in Europe). However, unless Google Labs comes to the rescue with its own solution to an everyman’s problem, like they have done before eg with the Browser Sync extension for Firefox, Apple might be able to sweep the market with one tiny feature which I am surprised nobody has yet addressed.
I believe it was on the first Gillmor Gang I ever listened to when Seth Godin was a guest and complained about being available 24/7 via cell phone and the trouble with switching it off because there actually might be an important call coming in.
I thought it back then and I’ll say it now: Give me a decent interface to control my address book. Don’t let me use the wimpy cell phone screen but a browser window. Let me define groups and specific settings for these groups.
And this is where Apple comes in. They already have a very powerful address book app. If they take as much car on syncing contacts as they do with the sync between iPod and iTunes it’ll be yet another anchor to lure more users to Apple.
Imagine to leave work, click a button and all of a sudden all contacts in group “work” are automatically sent to your voice mail. Calls from the group “VIP” get announced with vibration. Everything handled with easy pull-down menues or check-boxes.
That’ll be the day.
Technorati Tags: apple, iphone, cell, mobile, addressbook, googlelabs
6 Comments
sebastians
absolutely. outlook as well will go down. this shitty application will be substituted. probably by apple apps too?
Sebastian
Myself am confused about mail apps, using gmail a lot when I am on the road, but when with my machine for a week, mail.app (Apple’s solution) does make a lot of sense (just because I don’t know 100% how Gmail-sent mail is received at the other end.
Funny you should condemn outlook to death, from Bjoern’s post about Newsgater I gathered he liked outlook, didn’t complain about having to use it for feed reading.
sebastians
well the newsgator app is really enjoyable. but there are so many downsides with outlook – which is not newsgators fault. you also can use the gator without it like gmail, accessing it from anywhere.
there is one thing i do not agree with you and that is apple in total. itunes may be fun and the operating system more stabil than microsoft. but personally i think usability sucks in apple applications and even the keybord sucks – the mouse has only one button (i know they recently solved the prob) and so on. I had to work with it for 4 years during my time at an ad agency and i really did not like it, soft-gloved-speaking. my ipod has the nickname “bitch” because it and its software were bitching to me from the beginning.
sebastians
oh and you are wrong, the newsgator has a feeds delete button
Sebastian
I know you can delete feeds, but I am always looking for a “delete all feeds” button.
Regarding Apple, that’s discussion we can’t solve. I work without mouse, completely, and am very happy. Apart from one hard-drive crash never had problems, neither with iTunes, iPod and especially not with usability :-). For me the keyboard short cuts just work dandy.
planet sab
Apple iPhone will be a killer: but I think it could be a bomb