I Want an iPhone
by Patrick Ruffini :: January 9th, 2007 7:36 pm 
Never mind my kvetching earlier. I am sold.
I don’t know if the iPhone is The One Device — but it comes pretty darn close. Scoble is impressed despite being underwhelmed by Apple TV. Engadget has the full keynote where I was following along. And it’s demoed over at Apple (though it would have been cool to let us press the buttons as we would on the phone and explore).
What I love:
- Websites as they were meant to be seen. None of this .mobi and mobile stylesheet crap. Up until now, uber-simple Web layouts for cell phones were how we needed to do it, not how we wanted to do it. iPhone combined with true broadband changes everything.
- Graphic voicemail — that solves a big annoyance. Thank you, Apple!
- Google Maps & Widgets — hopefully these will be just as accessible for widget and mashup creation as their progenitors.
- The sensor for detecting portrait or landscape mode just rocks.
What I don’t love:
- 4GB and 8GB??? This fact alone doesn’t make it a true iPod replacement, and the phone will be crammed with other data to boot. Paying $100 for an extra 4 gigs just seems wrong.
- The screen. How easily does it scratch and smudge? That to me is the key question. My 30GB iPod is virtually unusable for video because of the scratches, and that after putting it in my pocket a handful of times without the sleeve. That is for a device I use occasionally. This is a phone/PDA/browser that will see heavy use and for which screen quality is not incidental. If this isn’t a sea-change from the iPod Video, the backlash could make the Wii strap issues look like a walk in the park (or maybe like the Wii they’re counting on the coolness factor overwhelming a serious usability issue — it’s not like it slowed down sales).
What I want to see:
- Why just SMS? Can I have IM too? Or is just a semantic issue now with smartphones? You’d think with the focus on bringing the Web to your pocket we could take SMS out back and shoot it.
- Given that it runs on Safari, will it run the full bevy of Ajax, Flash, etc.? If so, VCast and whatever deal YouTube has with the carriers has just been remaindered. This is important. A truly Web-enabled phone kills the walled gardens of broadcast SMS, VCast, etc. and eliminates the carriers’ stranglehold on content delivery to phones.
- A video camera.
Tagged: apple 
iphone
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I’m with you - I’m a Treo 700W fanatic, and I started drooling during the iPhone launch.
Never understood the ability to browse the Internet at dial up speeds and look at a 3.5 inch screen to see the results. If you ask me, just another useless overpriced gadget. You want MP3, you can easily get one for $40. The rest is pure hype.
Going to stick with my mini-sized laptop on the go, cell phone for calls, and 24 inch wide screen and braodband for serious browsing. My cell phone bill is high enough as is.
BTW, my cell phone has a browser built into the phone, is this supposed to be new? Or just a way to run up higher bills?
I agree with all of your points. I am somewhat of an “early adapter,” but I may hold off for a year or two on this one.
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