iPhone! AHHHH!!!

Seriously, this thing is just on a completely different level than any other mobile device in the market, or even considered for the market. This thing is just INSANE. My hometown homeboys, RIM, must be having some intense meetings right now. I just don't know where to begin in appreciating this thing.

It just does EVERYTHING. And does it so damn well.

The genius is unlocked by using the touchscreen interface. Whatever hardware and software magic Apple has pulled off to get the interface to work as well as it does has allowed them to break open the entire mobile experience. With accurate pointing (your fingers too! not a stupid stylus) and intuitive gesture motions you're not limited to up and down arrows that just seem archaic in comparison.

You have a large and beautiful screen to watch movies on. You have a super easy to use and friendly cell phone. You have an internet connected device (better be with WiFi!) to use all of these awesome gadgets. I mean, did you see the Google maps video?

I'm not one to get too excited by new technology, but this thing seriously looks so sweet. It's like the friggin future! The last time I felt this way was when I first laid eyes upon the original iPod.

This is just so far ahead of what anyone else is doing.

Of course you're paying the price! $600 with a 2 year contract! That's a spicy meatball right there! Fortunately, prices of mobile devices decrease pretty rapidly, and even with Apple's stricter approach to pricing, after a few years we're going to be seeing the Nano version of this thing for $200-$300. Just like you can't find a regular iPod that doesn't do video, in a couple of years the standard iPod is going to be this thing.

All of that being said, I'm sure there are going to be some major growing pains with this device. First off: Battery life. This has been a complaint for iPods for a while now, when compared against other media players, and I doubt Apple will have fixed this issue with the iPhone.

Then there's the revolutionary interface itself. Obviously Apple has thought about these issues, but HOW have they fixed them? Fingerprints, mis-interpreted presses, thick fingers (like mine), weird gestures, finnicky internet, etc. With a complicated device like this that does so much, there are a lot of things that can go wrong.

But man... if they really pull it off, like Apple has done before, it really is the future. Now.

I'm still freaking out. The whole internet connectivity plus everything else is so sick. Why Internet? Well with streaming video and sites like www.alluc.org you can now watch any show, anytime you want, from anywhere. I know you could do all of this with a laptop before, and I get that, but come on! Nobody likes lugging laptops around. Everybody carries a cell phone anyway. Apple wins.

very cool......

I think I'll start building iphone friendly websites.  I think the panning and zooming will become a pain.  I think building web content that can be viewed in one vertical strip will be much more attractive, and not hard to design this for most of our sites.  easy to do a browser detect since this is special version of safari.  of course it may all be a waste since I expect a holographic display to be a few years down the road.

Rim will still win the enterprise business.  corporations have an adversion to apple, and i doubt people will use the webmail option as an alternative.

TGN

That's a good point about the corporate market which is RIM's bread and butter. That + government + military. The fact that RIM's service runs on the more ubiquitous cellular network instead of spotty wifi networks means that Blackberries have the robustness portion covered many times over. But will they offer mail service over the cell network? I've never used a Blackberry, so I don't know how all of these things fit together.

However, I do feel the market is aimed at the wealthier young professionals. Those gadget conscious early adopters that want the latest thing. And as prices come down the market will start to widen among more demographics. Considering the price, it's not THAT bad. People are already buying iPods for $150-$300, cell phones for $100-$200, and digital cameras for $200-$300. Of course you can roll the digital camera into the cell phone. And lots of cells have mp3 playback as well. But they're just not this sleek and awesome. I really do think the touch screen will be revolutionary. That combined with Apple's software capabilities, and interface designers.

I personally wouldn't buy an iPhone just yet. I don't even use all those features! For me, it's too much stuff in one phone! And it's also quite expensive for the average consumer. I wouldn't really want to shell out $500-$600 for a phone. Sure, it's touch screen and everything, but I just like my cell phone plain and simple. I'm old-fashioned like that.

I guess I speak for the minority! :)

Are you really in the minority? I'm not sure if you can say that. I wouldn't consider myself in the majority because I am an early adopter of new technologies. It feels that way in the Web community, but I'm not sure if that is representative of the mass market.

However, I don't think the story is the phone. It's the mobile computing/email/maps/music/video/gps/web/youtube!!! In my opinion, the iPhone, or similar, will change the computing industry altogether.. It brings the connected computing experience that you've gotten so used to at home (or in Starbuck's) in to your pocket. All of this functionality and it's less than 0.5" thick. I checked, it's thinner than my RAZR.