It’d be cool if I could claim that I was completely unmoved by the Apple iPhone announcement. But I think we all know that’d be a lie, so I’m not even going to bother.
From the looks of it, they got everything right. It’s everything I was hoping to hear when they first started leaking rumors about the iPhone. In fact, it’s everything I imagined the Treo to be when I first heard about that, before it failed to deliver. I can still remember the first time I saw a Palm Pilot in operation, and I imagined all the “Star Trek” type stuff that would be possible with it — the demonstration videos trump even that.
Now, it really sucks that they’ve tied it to Cingular. It sucks a lot. The cell companies have had a stranglehold for too long, and they keep subsidizing crippled phones. As it happens, I already use Cingular, so the best I can do is protest the decision now, and then of course be the first in line to buy one the second they’re available.
And I guarantee that there’s going to be a host of complaints about the thing, just like with every first-version Apple product. Battery issues, screen issues, scratches, too-frequent upgrades, etc. But if there were ever any consumer gadget that cried out for me to be an early adopter, it’s this one.
So from now until June, I guess I’ll keep watching the demo movies on Apple’s site over and over again, as if it were the Zapruder film. (My favorite part is when they use Google technology to prank call a Starbuck’s). And point and laugh at my POS RAZR phone, which might as well have a tiny wireless Grim Reaper standing over it.