Review: iPhone 4
Unlike just about every other smartphone OS on the market, Apple's iOS seems to pretend that social networking doesn't exist outside of the App store. There are no social networking apps preloaded, and no social networking features integrated into the OS. If you want Facebook, Twitter or MySpace, you'll have to download the apps, but don't expect much.
Instead of integrating social networking features into the OS, Apple has provided developers with tools to access the system and let them do all the work. You can synchronize contacts through Facebook, but you don't get the level of control in linking profiles together, or the detailed information that you'll find on many other smartphones. You can upload photos from the Facebook or Twitter apps, but you can't send photos directly from the iPhone's gallery or camera app, like you can on most other phones. You can't synchronize calendar events with your social networks, either, and that integrated mailbox doesn't include Facebook mail, like the Inbox on BlackBerry phones.
This is the biggest mistake I think Apple has made with the iPhone 4 (aside from the industrial design, which may simply be a matter of my own personal taste). It's been a year and a half since Palm tightly integrated all of these social features into its WebOS, and since then every major phone maker (except maybe Nokia) has gotten the message. It clearly benefits the user when the OS maker gets involved and buries this sort of access deep within the system. If you can synchronize e-mail and calendars with Microsoft Exchange, why not sync with Facebook and Twitter?
Apple iPhone 4 (GSM)
