Hollyman’s World blog

Update: I did end up getting an iPhone and love it

The iPhone simply does not do the things that I need a “smart” phone to do for me.

Sure, I’ve held one, played with it, enjoyed the awesome looking screen and marveled at the touch-screen capabilities, however it just does not do the things that I really need a phone to do. What are these magical things that hundreds of thousands of other users didn’t end up needing? It’s a pretty short list, really. I’m just not willing to pay $600 for a phone that doesn’t do the few things I need it to do. (OK, I admit, if I had the spare cash to drop, I’d get one)

Multiple Voice-mail announcements selected by a setting on the phone

What this really means is, I want to record several different voicemail announcements for people that call me. Some examples might be, “I’m in a meeting right now” or “I’m currently traveling and will get back to you when I am back on the ground.” Each would be pre-recorded ahead of time and all I need to do is change a setting on the phone to pick which one. Now, when I’m in a meeting, the person calling me would get a message stating that I am in a meeting and hopefully won’t call 5 times in a row.

Another good use is to have custom greetings per contact. Wouldn’t it be nice if when you call your wife you get a personal vm?

A calendar that actually works when you move to other timezones

OK, maybe this works on the iPhone today. I’m not really sure and haven’t read anything online that would indicated that it does. I need a calendar that, when I have a meeting that was set for 9 AM MDT, if I am now on the west coast, that meeting will automatically be moved to 10 AM PDT. My “smart phone” today runs Windows Mobile 5.0 and doesn’t even get it’s time from the cell towers.

Multiple options for sending a call to voice-mail with custom greetings

Why do phones still only have two options? You either answer the call or ignore it and it goes to voice-mail. How about letting me have a couple of custom selections that would pla a pre-recorded voice-mail greeting to the caller? Like, “I’m in a meeting and can call you back in about 30 minutes” or “I am quite busy now, please leave a message and I will get back to you when I have a moment.”

Wouldn’t that be nice?

I know that the iPhone has a lot of potential. Apple has done a great job so far, but it’s far from revolutionary until I can make it do all the things I want it to do.