My smartphone: Apple iPhone 3GS

I really like some things about my iPhone, and I really hate some things about it. Pretty much what I like has to do with Apple's engineering prowress, and what I hate has to do with Apple's marketing tyranny. It is evident from my criticisms that I want a smartphone that is fully compatible with Linux, and that permits me to run whatever software I want on the smartphone that I paid for.

What I like about my iPhone

I'll fill out this list eventually. I could list a lot of positive features, but many of these exist on other smartphones; they are not unique to the iPhone. The only things I'll list here are those that, from my understanding, are lacking in most other smartphones.

What I hate about my iPhone

Shackled to iTunes

In order to have almost any communications between the iPhone and a computer, you have to go through iTunes. This was my single greatest shocker after I bought my iPhone. I couldn't believe that I can't access a unified file system on the iPhone which all applications could access. This means that I can't just drag and drop MP3s, photos or ringtones onto the iPhone without going through iTunes. To make things worse, there is no iTunes for Linux. Thus, I am forced to boot into Windows in order to synchronize my iPhone with my computer. I hate this Apple limitation. For my past smartphones (all Palm-based), I wasn't forced to use their installer unless I wanted to, and the system was sufficiently open that there were Linux alternatives. At least now, Rhythmbox does provide some iPhone syncing, which I mainly use for MP3s.

There are other things that I hate about the iPhone, which I will fill out eventually.