The iPhone 4s Is Not Perfect

This could be heresy to some Appleheads, but the iPhone 4s is not perfect. Before I got the iPhone I trolled around the net to see what problems people were reporting. The short life of the battery was the major one. I thought I could deal with that one because I wasn't out of the house or car for long periods of time where I was not able to recharge. There were a few other problems but it seemed more like early adapter problems and they were getting fixed.

But I've run into one with the camera. As you can probably guess I bought the iPhone as a iCamera/phone. So this one aggravates me especially since it seems to me it could be fixed with software. Here is the problem. If I shoot a vertical image and then send it from the Apple camera or the camera roll in email it will appear as sideways, a horizontal image, to the receiver on a computer although if they get it on an iPhone it will be vertical.

I've been searching for answers and solutions and found a long discussion on MacRumors forum. The reason that I think it is a software issue is if I take a vertical picture with the Camera+ app, it will remain in the vertical position. Also if I edit the picture in the camera roll, say use even a tiny crop, and send from the camera roll, it will remain vertical. This isn't a new problem. I don't know why Apple doesn't fix it.

Now, on a kind of positive note about Apple. A couple of weeks after I received the iPhone, I was no longer able to send a photograph in an email. We were still in Houston at the time. I figured it was just some setting I had changed and I would need to go back and do some reading and figure it out. See I always blame myself first! After we got to San Miguel, I read, I tinkered with settings and finally decided that it was beyond my abilities.

Email contact with Apple Support generated an email from them and gave me the option of setting up a time that they would call me or I could call them at this number. I called them. Lo and Behold! I got a representative on line whose first language was English. He worked with me for about 45 minutes and when we were not resolving the issue, he said he was going to put his supervisor on line. I didn't even ask to step up to the next level.

The supervisor tried various things including using several iPhones in their office to try to send an email with a photo attached via Yahoo email. After she couldn't get it to work either she told me that it had to be an Yahoo problem. Oh no! My first thought was that if Yahoo had a email system problem that kept iPhone users from sending photo attachments surely there would be discussions in forums and blogs. But Apple had been so helpful that I didn't know what else to do.

Have you ever tried to contact Yahoo? The Apple supervisor gave me a number that they use to contact Yahoo. This is good. I'll be able to contact Yahoo. Wrong! When I called the number I got the dread recording that if I had a problem I should go on-line to their Q&As and if I wanted to speak to a Yahoo representative they were all busy and there was a long line ahead of me. Basically, I could wait until hell freezes over before I get to speak to a person. I hung up. That was enough for one day.

But here is the most interesting thing about this story. The next day I tried to send a photograph attached to an email.....schoosh.....and it went. After three or four weeks of it not working, it worked. The iPhone email/photo has been working fine now for a week.

The photo above was shot at the Tuesday Tianguis and mostly processed in Snapseed.