QuickBooks Online on iPhone - my impression

After I have setup my Quickbooks Online, I tried to access it via my iPhone (https://accounting.quickbooks.com/m) as stated in the System Requirement from my previous post. 

My initial impression of the iPhone web app was good and with high expectation, but end up with disappointment as this is only a very basic read-only app. In my mind that this is a iPhone web app, not a native app, which means you must be online to access this app, and also means that you are accessing the live database at that time. I can't add or modify any of the master (bank, customer, vendor, employee), and transaction records (Who Owes Me, Who I Owe). I can understand the synchronization issues of the native app, but I cannot understand why these basic features are missing from the web app.

At least one thing meet my expectation, i.e. when tap on the customer phone number, it prompted whether I want to make a call to the number or not.

Looking forward to a more usable version of QuickBooks Online for iPhone.

QuickBooks Online - only support Windows platform with Internet Explorer

I saw that Intuit has just released a free edition of QuickBooks Online, i.e. QuickBooks Online Free. When I tried to sign up using Safari in my lovely MacBook, I got this. 

Obviously, the QuickBooks Online is tied to Microsoft technology, i.e. ActiveX. Fortunately, I have VMware Fusion with Windows XP and IE7 installed and I managed to sign up.

I can't stop to think about why Intuit decided to tied with Microsoft technology to limit their market penetration, especially the IE market share has dropped to 67% and still dropping. Will other web browsers going to support ActiveX in the future? I don't think so. 

Since this didn't make any logical sense to me, I think the technology used in QuickBooks Online is an art.