Christmas wish for the iPhone: be more like Palm

Most people blow their Christmas wishes on cameras, HDTVs, world peace, etc, but not me. What I want this year, is a treat from the folks at Apple. I want them to copy Palm.

Yes, yes, the iPhone is a marvelous creation. Everything (perhaps save actual phone calling) works well. Even the limited multi-tasking is something I can live with. What is missing and needs attention is something Palm has nailed with their webOS.

Palm, who still gets snickered at as they strive to find hardware as elegant or polished as their software, perfected notifications. The Palm Pre and the Pixi both, are an absolute joy to keep tabs on incoming communication. by comparison, the iPhone looks like wastebasket with crumpled paper scatter around it.

Palm’s method sends an unobtrusive small bar on the screen’s bottom that contains incoming notifications. From texts, to emails, to calendar appointments and invitations, these items get a small icon and wait patiently for you to be ready to deal with them. They are present, but avoidable if needed.

Apple’s notification is not so user friendly. “In your face and deal with it now” is the iPhone way, and once closed, the notification is gone, can’t remember if it was a text or email that came in? Ha ha, too bad sucker -start opening apps to figure it out.

Palm’s bottom bar notification allows users to get a bit more info on the the notification before heading off to respond. The effort is clean, clear and comforting that something isn’t being missed or forgotten.

Android does something similar to Palm and while surely a step up from Apple, fall short in my view. The Android solution is a top bar that is pulled down in classic Android fashion that contains your notifications. From here notifications can be deleted out of existence. I don’t find this to be a better solution to Palms. The top bar is busy to begin with, so the notifications there don’t grab my attention the way Palm does and for me, that is the whole point of notifications.

Both Palm and Android do a better job at handling notifications than the iPhone. Santa, if you are listening, please fix the iPhone. And if Apple is listening, please don’t force my hand with a Windows Mobile comparison. Santa is watching.