For all the perfection of the iPhone, for all the UI features that are years ahead of the buffoonery so common on other phones, the device is actually unaware of its own killer apps. Try this simple test on your iPhone and you'll be amazed how silly the result is. Open Safari on your phone. Go to YouTube.com. Click on a video to watch it. It isn't so odd that you can't really use the site, as it is well documented that the iPhone has no Flash Player, the display technology of Google's Billion-Channels-of-Nonsense-TV. What is absurd is that the device has a well developed YouTube application, but doesn't know to use it. Instead of immediately opening the requested YouTube video in the built-in application, you get a cryptic HTML message as if you are bumbling around on some inferior device, like a new laptop loaded with Vista.
"Hello, you either have JavaScript turned off or an old version of the Adobe's Flash Player. Get the latest Flash player." The last sentence is linked, as if that will solve anything. And isn't there a rule that once Google buys your site, error messages shouldn't start with "hello?"
A simple test with Google Maps shows how this should have been handled. Use the built-in search bar in Safari to type in "new york" or some other obvious city name. The number one result will be, of course, a Google Map in miniature of New York, New York. If you click on the mini-map, it will actually open in the application version, not the HTML page of Google Maps in Safari. A seamless transition from search to result to map, complete with animated pin drop to show you where you landed. Why YouTube couldn't do that is a mystery.
Google Maps stops short of fully integrated on iPhone though. I recently started using My Maps to track interviews for my forthcoming book, The Business of Design. My Maps is a great way to store locations for reference, but it doesn't work on the iPhone. Instead of being "My Maps" aware and opening the custom map in the actual application, these maps are confined to Safari. This is not a good solution at all, as zoom controls don't work correctly in Safari and other navigation snafus occur. Naturally, mixing a device that allows tapping with a map application that responds to almost any input makes for a poor user experience. This is why, no doubt, there is a Google Map application included in the first place, but they need to finish the job and allow custom and collaborative maps in it. As it stands, each location you want to save is a two step process, once in My Maps for desktop/laptop use and then searched for and bookmarked in iPhone separately.