I believe this is all because Apple has decided to ONLY sell the phone at Apple stores and not stock enough of them in order to increase hype and publicity around the product. They are using their customers as pawns in a chess game, in which they win a few extra billion dollars.

I’ve decided, based on principle, to refrain from buying an iphone or any other Apple products in the future. They should think about their customers first and worry about marketing tactics second.

I’ve been off the PDA/Super Phone experience for years now. I jumped off because I felt I was spending more time with the technology than focusing on the people it was helping me connect with.

The iPhone, from all that I am reading, may be my jumping back on point — as soon as the network issue gets resolved.

The reason I’m jumping back on? The same reason I’m ditching my PC as soon as it wears out — with Apple, it’s not technology for technology sake but products that help people.

The iPhone seems to live up to that design mantra by all early accounts.

Thanks for the specifics, great stuff — I do so much more enjoy debating specifics than sweeping generalizations.

“taking up half a device for keys that aren’t used half the time was bad design.’

I don’t know if I use my Blackberry keys half the time, but I use them A LOT — much more than surfing the web. For me, the real estate is worth it.

What iPhone did was break out of the erroneous assumption that the real estate is worth it for everybody.

“highest resolution screen on the market”

If I’m not mistaken, the iPhone and my Blackberry 8830 both have a horizontal resolution of 320 pixels. Yes, nothing comes close to the iPhone screen — full stop. But my Blackberry is bright and crisp and blows away older Blackberries in terms of resolution and readability.

“Placing your finger over the content you’re using in order to scroll it can be annoying” – Agreed. In some menus (iTunes, Contacts), there is a dedicated a-z scroll bar on the right. But not on web pages.

“Rotating the iPhone when using the keyboard for email or notes doesn’t switch to landscape and the bigger keyboard.” – Correct. But It does in Safari, so it’s obviously possible. I expect a software fix for this soon.

“The iPhone isn’t optimized for text-centric use.” – Sorry, but that’s just crazy talk. It’s the biggest, highest resolution screen on the market. Reading is a joy on it, especially compared to the crap screens and jaggy fonts on a Sidekick or Blackberry.

“Removing the physical keyboard to provide full-screen viewing was a … declaration that text input is less important than image viewing.” I disagree. It was a declaration that taking up half a device for keys that aren’t used half the time was bad design.

“SLLLLOOOOWWW” – I don’t doubt your experience with Edge on other phones in your area, but this is another case where in-store experience just doesn’t count. I’m getting 177 Kbps on my iPhone sitting in my living room (wifi off). As with all things network, YMMV.

Like I said before, the iPhone is not perfect. I just posted my Top 10 iPhone Wishes. But there’s never been a more exciting time to be an early adopter.

Even the vaunted Verizon is far from perfect, but I’ve gone all over Northern Virginia with it and have yet to experience even a bad signal, much less an interruption in service.

First of all, given that you seem to have the courage of your conviction, why don’t you have the courage to supply your real name? It’s easy to criticize hiding behind anonymity.

You’ve owned the iPhone for, what, a week? How long have you had a Blackberry for?

Your opinion is bigger than my opinion — whatever, it’s still just opinion.

To suggest that EVERYONE will be better served by one device than another is absurd on the face of it.

Good content management systems, like WordPress, make it effortless to provide multiple versions of a site, including WAP and RSS — load Publishing 2.0 on your Blackberry and you’ll see. There’s no issue there.

You use the phrase “users like you” as if my preferences are heretical or wrong — that attitude why there are so many crappy applications.

As to my RSS, I publish a full content feed — if it’s not showing up in your reader, there’s a technical problem on your end or mine. What reader do you use?

I wasn’t suggesting George was wrong about the scroll — I’m curious to learn about it.

As a owner of both, I think my opinion on that is more informed than your scientific “review”/opinion on the iphone.

The rss feed comment was provided as an alternative to having the entire front page of the times load. Yes, the article still requires you to go to the times site (your feed is the same btw)…but I suppose that’s a ‘limitation’ to you. Developers/providers of content should still have to maintain two variations of a site — for users like you (e.g., http://wap.crackberry.com)

re #2, as George stated that’s how it works. Go back to the store and try it again.

I completely agree big picture: “there is more innovation in this one device than most companies can muster in a lifetime”

But as to the specifics, are there of my observations that you disagree with based on your use over the last week? I acknowledged, based on Zen Master Mossberg’s experience, that it’s impossible to judge the keyboard until you’ve had a chance for your brain to adjust. Is there anything else like that?

Still, as another commenter pointed out, poking at it in the store is one thing. Bringing it home, synching all your stuff, and they carrying it out into the world for a while is another.

The iPhone is by no means a perfect device (or on the perfect network). But it is the closest, bestest, most exciting innovation in handheld computing in years. I’m personally thrilled to be riding the wave.

Cowabunga,

– Derek

NYtimes.com doesn’t publish full text feeds, so you still have to click through to the site to read the articles, and thus deal with all the images and layout.

“Any blackberry user who’s OWNED both will hands down pick the iPhone.”

Really? Can you show me your scientific poll results, or is that just your uninformed opinion, as with your RSS comment?

Any blackberry user who’s OWNED both will hands down pick the iPhone.

This isn’t a gadget blog, nor is this intended as a “review” to inform purchase decisions. It’s a reflection on iPhone innovations and limitations from the perspective of media.

George,

I couldn’t find anything in the iPhone manual about a scroll bar — do you have a link to a reference or a picture?

As to AT&T, your mileage may of course vary. Here’s what Kent German at CNET had to say about it:

“When not using Wi-Fi, you’re stuck with AT&T’s EDGE network, which is just too slow to render the lovely Safari interface enjoyably. With speeds in the 50-to-90Kbps range, it reminded us of a dial-up browser. In other words, it’s pretty intolerable.”

What? There are reviews out on the net from people who have USED the iPhone for weeks now (WSJ, NYT, Newsweek) and for at least a week (everyone who bought on at launch)
And you think a “standing in the Apple Store playing with the demo unit” writeup is “what we all need to make an informed decision”?

Re #4: In LA, edge is around 20KB/sec, about 25% or my DSL service. Yeah, ou might not want to browse flicker with it, but the major of website load in a reasonable time frame. Also, the iPhone is a true multitasking device. Once, I thought web had slowed with in Safari, but realized I was downloading a large PDF in mail at the same time (in the background).

Thanks,

Ian