iPhone Suggested Improvements

[jsf721]

I switched from a Blackberry and at first was frustrated by the touch screen but with some perseverence I am now very satisfied. No that it is perfect and I whought I would start a list of things (Realistic things) that I as disapointed are not there:

1. iPhone cannot dial contacts with extensions that are sync'd to the phone through exchange from outlook in format 516-123-4567 x123. The blackberry did this seemlessly. I know I can add a coma or wait sign on the iphone but I have over 1000 work contacts and it just is inconvenient.

2. When I call a client and they are not in the office, I have to go back to contacts to pick up the cell #. With the BB, I woujld selct the office number to redial and it would ask which number office, cell or home.

3. Finger print unlock instead of 4 digits. Keep 4 digit as back up, but the exchange server makes me secure the phone and it would be more conveniet to just hold my finger on the slide and read the print and open. Like I said, the 4 digit code would be a back up.

4.Hire the BBM people to run and further develop iMessage.

Where can you send ideas directly to apple.

 

[lordofthereef]

Points one and two are great. Point three isn't all that secure. Those "fingerprint scanners" just don't work very well, and for that reason, I don;t see Apple implementing it unless we see a huge jump in that tech. Point 4, while a good idea, I am not sure RIM is going to go for that (read: they won't). That would be admitting defeat, and I am pretty sure they are not willing to go there. BBM is very, VERY good, and I do wish something like this could be implemented into iOS.

 

[Shanekarpi251]

Sounds like you should stick with blackberry...

 

[jsf721]

Sounds like you should stick with blackberry...

Perhaps you should be a productive member. Do t you want anything better or different. I have a bb and choose to use my 4s because I like it better overall. Not to say there are not features is miss from the bb. There is not way you can put the reliability and feature set of iMessage up against bbm. There is not reason apple can't get the iPhone to recognize phone extensions.

I am glad your so happy with what they gave you that you feel any attempt to improve is disloyal to apple in some way.

 

[Shanekarpi251]

Perhaps you should be a productive member. Do t you want anything better or different. I have a bb and choose to use my 4s because I like it better overall. Not to say there are not features is miss from the bb. There is not way you can put the reliability and feature set of iMessage up against bbm. There is not reason apple can't get the iPhone to recognize phone extensions.

I am glad your so happy with what they gave you that you feel any attempt to improve is disloyal to apple in some way.

You make no sense. Its my opinion, don't get upset. Please get off the forum. Thanks.

 

[icb1977]

There is a way around the extensions, it is the wait function by replacing the "x" or "ext." with a ";" in all of your contacts.

This maybe a very difficult task, or it can be easy. The one thing I can't tell you is how it works with Exchange, since I don't have much experience in that environment.

But I modified my entire contact list of 3,000 contacts (out of which approx. 40-50% had extensions) in less than 30 minutes and here is how I did it:

1. Exported contacts from Outlook to Microsoft Excel
2. Opened up the exported (.xls) document
3. Located the appropriate column for Business Phone, Assistant Phone, etc. that would have extensions.
4. Highlight the appropriate columns and open up the Find/Replace function.
5. I performed a replace on the following (".ext", "ext", "x", etc.) replacing with "; "
6. Then I saved the xls file.
7. Then re-import back into Outlook. **Make sure you always back up your data just in case.
8. Resync with iTunes

Now in step 5 I replaced the .ext first before the x for example because I didn't want a result of "e;t.123"

Now when you dial it will give you the option of dialing extension 123.

Hope this helps. How to implement it in an exchange environment will have to be discussed with your IT department.

 

[chambone]

Where can you send ideas directly to apple.

http://www.apple.com/feedback/iphone.html

 

[nostresshere]

This is a good place to get help with things like moving from BB to iphone.

Probably not a good place to offer "suggested improvements to iphone".

 

[Applejuiced]

2. When I call a client and they are not in the office, I have to go back to contacts to pick up the cell #. With the BB, I woujld selct the office number to redial and it would ask which number office, cell or home.

3. Finger print unlock instead of 4 digits. Keep 4 digit as back up, but the exchange server makes me secure the phone and it would be more conveniet to just hold my finger on the slide and read the print and open. Like I said, the 4 digit code would be a back up.

To redial the same number you called earlier all you gotta do is go to phone/recents and click the person you called earlier. It will dial the same number you called before without having to select cell or office etc.

About the finger print thing I wouldnt bother.
Pin lock is safe, anyone can fool a fingerprint scanner and for a phone to have one I think its pointless.

 

[jsf721]

There is a way around the extensions, it is the wait function by replacing the "x" or "ext." with a ";" in all of your contacts.

This maybe a very difficult task, or it can be easy. The one thing I can't tell you is how it works with Exchange, since I don't have much experience in that environment.

But I modified my entire contact list of 3,000 contacts (out of which approx. 40-50% had extensions) in less than 30 minutes and here is how I did it:

1. Exported contacts from Outlook to Microsoft Excel
2. Opened up the exported (.xls) document
3. Located the appropriate column for Business Phone, Assistant Phone, etc. that would have extensions.
4. Highlight the appropriate columns and open up the Find/Replace function.
5. I performed a replace on the following (".ext", "ext", "x", etc.) replacing with "; "
6. Then I saved the xls file.
7. Then re-import back into Outlook. **Make sure you always back up your data just in case.
8. Resync with iTunes

Now in step 5 I replaced the .ext first before the x for example because I didn't want a result of "e;t.123"

Now when you dial it will give you the option of dialing extension 123.

Hope this helps. How to implement it in an exchange environment will have to be discussed with your IT department.

I could never pull this off withoput messing it up. Good Job.

 

[MassiveAttack]

I switched from a Blackberry and at first was frustrated by the touch screen but with some perseverence I am now very satisfied. No that it is perfect and I whought I would start a list of things (Realistic things) that I as disapointed are not there:

1. iPhone cannot dial contacts with extensions that are sync'd to the phone through exchange from outlook in format 516-123-4567 x123. The blackberry did this seemlessly. I know I can add a coma or wait sign on the iphone but I have over 1000 work contacts and it just is inconvenient.

2. When I call a client and they are not in the office, I have to go back to contacts to pick up the cell #. With the BB, I woujld selct the office number to redial and it would ask which number office, cell or home.

3. Finger print unlock instead of 4 digits. Keep 4 digit as back up, but the exchange server makes me secure the phone and it would be more conveniet to just hold my finger on the slide and read the print and open. Like I said, the 4 digit code would be a back up.

4.Hire the BBM people to run and further develop iMessage.

Where can you send ideas directly to apple.

iPhone isn't for you. The last thing anyone that loves Apple would want is anyone involved with that abortion of a company RIM working on anything iOS.

 

[lordofthereef]

iPhone isn't for you. The last thing anyone that loves Apple would want is anyone involved with that abortion of a company RIM working on anything iOS.

Have you used BBM? It is widely accepted as better than anything else like it. Apple works with MS and Google. What's the difference?

 

[MassiveAttack]

Have you used BBM? It is widely accepted as better than anything else like it. Apple works with MS and Google. What's the difference?

Had a curve 8320, Bold 9000 and bold 9700. BBM though a great messaging platform is't the end all be all of mobile messaging. If you're a BB enthusiast then yes it better than sliced bread but for the rest of us? WGAS. The difference is that RIM is in the toilet and awaiting to be flushed, I'm positive Apple will never work with RIM ever.

 

[lordofthereef]

Had a curve 8320, Bold 9000 and bold 9700. BBM though a great messaging platform is't the end all be all of mobile messaging. If you're a BB enthusiast then yes it better than sliced bread but for the rest of us? WGAS. The difference is that RIM is in the toilet and awaiting to be flushed, I'm positive Apple will never work with RIM ever.

RIM right now is about where Apple was in the mid 90's. Things can turn around, though I am not saying or assuming they will, just saying that we have seen it happen before. BBM, I would say, still currently is better than any of its competition, and I am no BB fan.

EDIT: iMessage is on the right track on its own. If we could get Gtalk, AIM, etc. integration (which they do have on the desktop app for iMessage) this could get much better.