While jailbreaking already provides tons of functionality, there's still room for improvement and expansion in 2012. Last year I did a list of jailbreak concepts Apple should implement and low and behold, they implemented quite a few of them. But that's part of the game. Part of what spurs more innovation is creativity and pushing boundaries. And at the end of the day it's really the user base that is the most useful when it comes to helping developers out. They can't create it if they don't know we want it. So this is our list of the top 5 things we'd like to see jailbreak accomplish in 2012.

A jailbreak for A5 devices

We already know pod2g is working on this. While we will most likely get one in 2012, I'm not excluding it as one of the biggest wants for many users. We just received an untethered jailbreak for A4 and older devices. Hopefully a jailbreak for the iPad 2 and iPhone 4S aren't that far behind. While an untethered version would be epic win, I'd take a tethered version for starters.

Cydia updates

While Cydia is probably one of the most used apps on my iOS devices, it can become rather frustrating at times. Saurik made some updates to Cydia in 2011 but nothing to get too excited about. Cydia could use a facelift and some speed enhancements.

While it may not be at the top of saurik's list right now, I know Cydia is frustrating for many users on a day to day basis. Not to mention the organization of packages is rather daunting for many new jailbreakers. They have no idea where to start or what apps they should be downloading. Sure, they can always come to TiPb but for those not familiar, how about adding a jailbreak starter pack in Cydia? I know several new users revert back to stock quickly out of confusion and frustration.

I'd like to see Cydia step up its game to show users what jailbreak is all about. It isn't about pirating apps and installing illegal software at all. It's about enhancing and customizing your experience.

More iPad compatible apps and tweaks

While there is support for jailbroken iPads, it's very minimal. I'd really like to see that change. As of right now, I really can't find a good reason to jailbreak my iPad. A lot of this could have to do with the lack of support for current iPad 2 users. Jailbreak developers may not want to put the time and effort into supporting the low number of jailbroken iPads.

Hopefully a jailbreak for A5 devices will create more interest in jailbreaking the iPad. Even though there are a few good reasons to jailbreak the iPad, I'd like to find a reason I can not live without. I'd like to have a reason or find a jailbreak application compelling enough to make me not want to live without my iPad being jailbroken.

If I'm missing out on some to die for jailbreak utilities for iPad, please let me know. I've yet to find them.

More support updates from developers

After iOS 4 was released, Cydia was plagued with tons of apps and utilities that were never updated to support it. Even though jailbreak tool after jailbreak tool was released supporting almost every device on the market, tools were left to collect dust. Some of them were actually very useful utilities that I really missed using after updating. Things like changing keyboard styles were little tweaks that were left untouched for months.

Some developers are extremely good about updating their tools. Others are not. Where that happens, I'd really like to see new jailbreak developers step up and come out with new solutions. Heck, just improve upon someone else's idea. It seemed as if the jailbreak community was left with a ton of tools that were left in limbo. A package may work, it may not, it may just crash your springboard. I'd like to see less of this.

Maybe this is something that needs to come bundled with updates to Cydia. This is another reason jailbreak may be off-putting to some new users. They download tweaks that aren't compatible with their devices and when it isn't stable, they restore and never give jailbreak another chance. We need to avoid experiences like this as developers.

A more unified jailbreak process

This one may be asking a bit too much but heck, I'll throw it out there. While redsn0w and tools like it are pretty user friendly to begin with, there are tons of tools out there and that's confusing to new users. What tool do they use? Is one not compatible with their device? Programs like ipswDownloader aim to make it easier for beginners, but a lot of beginners won't know what an IPSW is let alone what the tool does, where to find it, or know why they need it.

If jailbreak developers could come together to make a great tool that accommodates all users, I think the jailbreak community would see a great benefit and many more users. I see tons of people in my office every day that bricked their device or jailbroke it with an incorrect tool. I also see people that searched and researched jailbreak online, became overwhelmed, and would rather come and pay me to do it correctly than mess something up themselves. I know there are tons of other users out there that are put off by the overwhelming amount of information and tools out there. Working together to find a way to make the process more streamlined would be time spent that would pay off in the long run.

Bottom line

I think my overall outlook on jailbreak is this - people buy Apple devices because of the experience and the ease of use. If jailbreak complicates things too much, they'll stray away. Of course there will always be power users and ninjas that will put in the time to make it work. But the bottom line is that most iOS users just want their device to work and work well. If jailbreak developers can find ways to make the process and overall experience better, I think they'd see a lot more users willing to give it a try or a second runaround.

What do you guys want to see jailbreak developers aiming for in the coming year? Let us know!

Craig Hockenberry, the widely acclaimed Mac developer of Twitterific, has had extensive experience developing for jailbroken iPhones and iPod Touches. So, when he weighs in on the iPhone SDK, it's definitely worth a read.

From the 70/30 split to the $99 publishing fee, the lack of information about distributing 3rd party apps to beta testers, the possibility of try-before-you-buy demos, and the mechanism for paid upgrades, Hockenberry pulls no punches:

One thing that disappoints me about the iPhone SDK sign-up is that the entry fee of $99 is too low. I look at the entry fee as a way to filter out developers that aren’t fully committed to the platform. [...] A higher entry fee would lessen the chance of this becoming a bottleneck for getting my product into the system. Please charge me $499 and let move to the front of the line.

Wait... Charge developers MORE? And what, pass the costs on to the consumer?

Not according to former Apple programmer (and writer of Apple's GeekGameBoard sample code), Jens Alfke. He thinks $0.99 - $1.99 might just set off the perfect high-volume price storm:

So assume you spent some evenings and weekends writing a cool little utility or game. You submit it to the App Store and set the price at $1.43. You get $1 of pure, unadulterated profit from every user of the app. [...] Steve promises us there will be ten million iPhones in the world. If a tenth of a percent of them impulse-purchase your $1.43 app, that’s $100,000.

Alfke also covers the interesting possibility of Xbox-style game expansion packs as revenue streams, and takes a not-to-subtle swipe at carrier gouging and consumer gluttony via the ringtone market.

Hmm, serious developers charging no-brainer prices for "next great platform" apps? I'm in! What about you?

Unless you've been pinned under a bus for the past 24 hours, you've no doubt witnessed the unfolding drama from yesterday's announcement by Google about its upcoming open mobile platform, dubbed Android. Opinions range from Android’s arrival heralding the end of the wireless world as we know it, to “Oh my God…targeted ads on a mobile phone!” This story isn’t particularly relevant to iPhone enthusiasts, but its impact will affect the handset industry as a whole. And being the smarty pants, know-it-all, Smartphone expert, tech talkin guy that I am, I couldn’t let this topic pass by without weighing in.

Let’s start off by cutting through marketing speak and deciphering what Android is and isn’t. What it is, according to Google, is a software stack and not the packaged operating system we came to expect from rumors preceding the announcement. What does that mean? In plain English it means Google’s OS is a bag of parts, unassembled and customizable for any application, like a pile of Lego building blocks. More on that later. As part of this venture, Google has lined up an impressive group of A-list industry partners to back its platform… all part of a larger open source initiative called the Open Handset Alliance. The group includes companies ranging from handset makers, software developers, and carriers alike. Each one lends a hand in developing Android’s software stack, and each has own interests and agenda…each using the other to get what it wants. Here is where Android begins falling apart like a house of cards on a wobbly table.

Speaking as someone who has covered the mobile industry for many years, I can tell you from experience that such conglomerations almost universally end in failure. The reason is simple; no one entity controls platform development guidelines or sets roadmap. With proprietary operating systems like Windows Mobile, or OSX, one company or development teams controls the entire development process and most importantly… user experience. Google is being less than transparent with Andriod’s UI experience and application framework, but if my hunch is correct (and it usually is on matters of mobile tech) Android will end up being a mélange of disparate and disjointed software environments with different interfaces running on different hardware, all with different application layers. Apps that run on one device may not run on another (think Symbian).

Usability is another problem. Software is nothing unless it offers a compelling user experience. An operating system must be aesthetically pleasing, reliable, and brain-dead simple to operate. iPhone delivers all of these qualities in world class fashion, which is largely reason for its success. Looking through the list of Open Handset Alliance partners reads like a who’s who in the FBI’s ten most wanted list. None of the companies involved, including Google, are known for building pretty and usable interfaces. Google’s web based properties are minimalist at best and ugly at worst. Google search does what it does. Google Doc’s gets the job done, but certainly is no replacement for Office 2007 in either. HTC isn’t exactly a hotbed of innovation when it comes to handset design. The company has done well in the Windows Mobile camp, but that’s not saying very much given the lackluster success Microsoft has had outside of the enterprise, where looks and brains don’t count. Motorola, couldn’t design a proper GUI to save its own…business. Needless to say I have very low expectations from the first round of Android-based devices to hit the market later next year.

Then we have Google’s disturbing revenue model behind Android’s distribution…one that is ad-based. The plan, as disclosed by Eric Schmidt, is to license Android freely (under the Apache GPL) in return for targeted ad revenues with carrier partners. This is worrisome to me for two reasons. 1) Handset displays are simply too small to allocate already taxed space to text-based ads. 2) I don’t fancy the thought of Google aggregating my data and bombarding me with targeted ads. Imagine this scenario – your car needs repaired…you call your nearest garage for an estimate…suddenly a text message pops up on your screen soliciting a car insurance ad from Geico. Not the kind of mobile experience I want on my phone.

So what good is Android anyway? For starters, it could do a world of good for mobile platform development by bringing an end to the confused noise of different languages that exist today. As it stands now the wireless industry is a virtual alphabet soup of different proprietary operating systems, some closed - some open, all sporting different APIs and different incompatible software stacks. Other mobile Linux efforts abound, but having Google’s name attached to this venture provides a unifying label to get behind. My bet is that over the next few years, proprietary platform vendors, particularly Nokia and RIM, will layer their own software on top of Google's Linux foundation. Consolidation is badly needed in this industry, and Google’s platform may offer that hope.

The big losers in this endeavor will be Access, the company that acquired PalmSource, the former software division of Palm Inc. Access has been working on a project similar to Google’s for some time, named ALP (Access Linux Platform). After yesterday’s announcement that project is as good as dead. Palm is another company to be placed on death watch, where they’ve been for some time now. Palm is locked in a desperate struggle to remain viable and get its long delayed Linux operating system out the gate. Android will ship months before Palm’s, making former handheld leader and its yet-to-be-released OS as irrelevant as Britney Spears music career. Microsoft’s executive team, too, will have reason to drink Pepto-Bismol in boardroom meetings, though I doubt Android will put them out of the mobile business anytime soon. Windows Mobile is well established with legions of backers and garners a handsome chunk in market share.

How does this play out for Apple? Android and its Open Handset Alliance will have little impact on iPhone or Apple’s handset business. iPhone, much like all products that wear the Apple logo, is a lifestyle device, not a commodity product like the PC. Mobile technology is a delicate interplay between hardware and software. If either one component is deficient or lacking in any way, the total product fails. That kind of synergy is only achieved when the software and hardware are made by the same creative team, with a cohesive strategy and vision. Google will quickly discover that merely getting the software equation right will be challenging enough. Getting device makers to build compelling hardware to wrap around its OS will be even harder.

Android could (emphasis) prove to be a turning point in mobile platform development, approaching a single but open environment for all to build upon, bringing an end to the Pan’s Labyrinth of platforms we know today. But the cynic in me feels this is just a lot of hot air. I’m anxious to see what this platform will offer, and rest assured I’ll be right there on day one standing first in line with other Smartphone aficionados waiting to get an Android phone. But given what I know from past efforts, my expectations are low.

With the release of firmware update 1.1.1 came something new to iPhone that I think may prove to be its most insidious feature yet; iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store. Now I know that many of you don't purchase music via iTunes, preferring instead to utilize certain ahem free source, but you may sing a different tune once you start rummaging through genres and newly released content on the screen of your iPhone. For me it's becoming an addiction. I have to force myself not to tap on the lovely purple store icon that beckons me to enter and pay pay pay. iPhone has now become a gateway drug to iTunes.

As you would expect, Apple has made the experience brain dead simple and beautifully designed. You can almost feel Steve Jobs standing beside you, holding your hand and guiding you along the walkways of his walled garden. Drinking from the Chalice of Kool-Aid.To start your journey to DRM'd happiness, simply tap the iTunes Store icon and you're instantly greeted with a lovely graphical, but pint sized, version of iTunes formatted for iPhone's HVGA screen. A row of buttons along the bottom take you to Featured Artists and albums, Top tens, Search, and Downloads. Search for you favorite artist and tap to select your choice of available albums. To hear a preview, tap on any available track, and a tiny album thumbnail image with visually rotate, revealing a player icon that rotates clockwise, representing 30-second playback countdown. If you wish to buy that track, tap on the $.99 priced icon, which then transforms into another button innocently labeled "Buy Now".

This is where the experience becomes a mechanism for costly music addiction. Having instant access to music download via iPhone somehow dramatically changes the paradigm. The required footwork imposed by bolting the music store onto a PC or Mac (running iTunes) acted a natural barrier to entry. If I wanted to buy a particular song or album, I have to go trotting off to my Mac, launch iTunes, find the song or artist, purchase, download, then sync my iPod or iPhone in order to access my purchase. Too much work. Apple just turned that five step process into one, opening a new venue for window shopping audiophiles. Before I knew it, on the first day of use, I had downloaded ten tracks without giving a second thought. Then I realized... my God, I could do this for hours!

Could this euphoric instant gratification be iPhone's killer app? It could be. But I do know that my credit card company will be very happy as I rack up interest charges. What's in your wallet?

Tech curmudgeon John C. Dvorak (the C stands for cranky) points the spotlight of criticism on Apple for its blatant act of bricking unlocked iPhones. He points out that in many overseas markets unlocked phones are common place, and a lucrative business. Hey, John... I agree with you, but trying to get Apple to change its policies is like trying to wrestle a half ton alligator. It's a futile effort and just makes the gator angry.

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Last week and the proceeding weekend I was on the receiving end of some terrible misfortune; the worst series of mishaps I have endured in... well, quite a long while. Fools rush in where hackers fear to tread. And I not only rushed in, I kicked in the door and set fire to the house on my in. Very unwise.

When news of Apple's posted firmware update became available I anxiously awaited news from guinea pig unlockers, who bravely installed the update, whether or not updating results in brickage. Gizmodo boisterously (and prematurely) proclaimed that it was all a poker bluff from Apple. No bricks, nor breakage. That news emboldened me to proceed with flashing. Count me in! No sooner had a I begun applying the update when the first wave of reported problems began rolling in. Gizmodo was wrong, and led me to my doom.

But he who proceeds without hearing all the facts, suffers the consequences. I take full responsibility for the untimely but temporary demise of my iPhone. I knew I was playing with fire, and I got burned. That's life. You roll the dice and take your chance.

Unfortunately that was only the beginning of my problems.

Friday night is, for me, a time to hang out with friends and socialize. Blowing off steam from the pressures of work. Not this particular evening as the case would be. My workstation PC had other plans in store for me. I had installed Vista Service Pack 1 beta earlier in the week, which took several attempts to get up and running, and this system has behaved unpredictably ever since. That description could easily be applied to Vista itself - unpredictable.

There is no way to put this subtly; Windows Vista is raw fecal waste material, minus the color and oder. Five years in development by Microsoft has yielded the absolute worst operating system they've ever released. It is slow, cumbersome, offers poor compatibility, miserable gaming performance, spotty driver support. The list goes on. I can't begin to tell you how much I HATE this OS.

So when it became clear that SP1 (beta though it is) actually worsened my "Wow" experience promised by Vista. This was the last straw for me. I pulled out an external hard drive. Backed up all my critical data, and reformatted the hard drive, rolling back to XP Pro. Vista is gone from my hard drive, never to return again. From this point on I am moving over to OSX. I use both platforms daily, Windows and Mac, but Microsoft continues pushing me ever increasingly towards using Mac as my primary platform. When Leopard arrives this month, I'm pushing all of production workload over to my Mac Pro. Windows will live on as a virtual machine running in OSX.

So, in addition to a dead iPhone I now had to make an unexpected OS transition as well. Fun stuff. As I'm typing this I am staring at XP's hideous blue Fisher Price interface and an antiquated Palm Treo Smartphone, which has replaced iPhone as my pocket companion. Needless to say I am not in the best of moods right now, and it's a hell of a way to start a week.

As I'm sure most of you heard; over the weekend some enterprising user discovered a method for downgrading iPhone's firmware from 1.1.1 to 1.02, providing a reversal (or so we all thought) to the bricking that occurred. Not so. It turns out this procedure does not downgrade baseband drivers to an earlier state necessary to reactivate AT&T SIMs. It only enables jailbreakage, so iPhone can be used with WiFi only. A nice start, but it doesn't provide an end game solution to reactivating a "bricked" iPhone.

At this point there is little else to do but wait patiently for iPhone Dev Team to work out a reversal solution. Whether I can hold out for such a workaround is another matter. Right now I am this >< close to applying my $100 Apple Store credit towards the purchase of a second iPhone. It would probably be in my best interest to own two iPhones, using one as a “beater” device for testing and review purposes. With the second unit left in virgin condition as my personal daily use phone.

So in case you were all wondering why i have been so quite over the weekend... now you know. But enough of my whining. It's a new week. Time to get back to work. And get writing again. I never seem to have the time to write good content for this site. The iPhone Blog is run with one hand and four fingers tied behind my back. Since I works as a freelance web designer as an occupation, that's where I have to devote my time. This site is a secondary hobby, which is unfortunate. But I do have some ideas in play that I hope you guys will like. More on that later.

Back to work, and back to writing.

I have setup a petition page to record every feature request made by my readers. This is your chance to speak out and be heard. What features do you want added to iPhone? Visit this link, and post your request in the comments section. I will then add your request to the list. I expect this page to grow long over time, so I placed a permalink in the left sidebar so you'll always know right where it's at.

Click here, and post.

Angry words and heated accusations were being flung at a certain well known product maker today, and I'm not talking about Mattel's recall of lead-painted toys for tots. Early adopters who patiently stood in long lines on June 29 (including yours truly), eager to be first on the block to own iPhones, are being rewarded with the sudden devaluation of their investments. Today Apple dropped the price of its most popular iPhone model (8GB) by $200, just two months after launch. What cost six Ben Franklins yesterday now costs only $399.

This sudden deflation in price has many incumbent iPhone users feeling cheated. Some are posting angry letters on Apple's support forums, expressing frustration, agitation, degradation, and other words that end in ion. My inbox is flooding with angry comments, I feel like a rape crisis hotline. Many are asking for some type of reasonable compensation or token for this punch to the stomach, or wallet as it were. A two hundred dollar cashback reward perhaps? Not going to happen. How about a voucher for a truckload worth of free iTunes downloads? Nope. The best solution I can come up with is for Apple to offer early adopters a coupon or discount redeemable at any Apple Store, good towards the purchase of any Apple product. Of course, the illogic of that is inescapable - I already paid too much for an iPhone, now I'm going to go further in debt by buying more Apple products?

So what is your solution to the problem? What should Apple do to compensate its loyal users? Speaking as someone who operates one of the most popular iPhone enthusiast sites on the entire bloody internet I feel that Apple needs to take care of its audience, no matter what the outcome. We helped lay the foundation for a new community, and help build the product's success. I certainly did anyway. How about it Steve? Throw us a bone.

[update] Just wanted to clarify a point - if you recently purchased an iPhone within the last 14 days you can request a refund on the $200 price difference by calling or returning to the origin of purchase. If your iPhone was purchased prior to that period...well...you are screwed. Sorry.

MSNBC.com technology writer, Joe Hutsko, purchased an iPhone to replace his Treo 680 (a common trend it seems) and decided to put the much hyped gadget to the test, to see whether iPhone is road worthy as a laptop replacement.

Can I type as quickly on it as I can on my MacBook or any real keyboard? No. As fast as on my Treo 680? Yes. Faster, actually. And comfortably enough that I can imagine getting real editing work done once there’s a Word-compatible editor for the iPhone. And not just editing, but real writing too, as demonstrated by this story — the first draft of which was written entirely on the iPhone.

Joe was so impressed with iPhone's proven mobile computing potential he sees it replacing the role currently served by laptops.

ReadSource

As a mobile enthusiast, I own (or have owned) a cross sample of every major platform on the market today, ranging from Windows Mobile, Symbian, embedded Linux (well, one flavor anyway), and BlackBerry OS. I first cut my teeth on mobile technology with PalmOS way back in 1997 when a small startup named Palm Computing introduced a product called the Palm Pilot, launching an industry of software and hardware development. The Pilot 1000 was my very first PDA, and I immediately fell in love with the software and its hallmark simplicity. That device kindled a love affair with mobile technology that has lasted to this day.

While my tastes in gadgets changed over the years as I migrated from one device and platform to another, PalmOS has always been a key part of my mobile lifestyle. Partly for nostalgia and partly because the OS still had a certain understated flair that enabled me to remain productive even while lacking advanced features and functionality offered by my Windows Mobile and Symbian based Smartphones. I still preferred the elegance and intuitive interface found on my Palm Treos.

Prior to acquiring the iPhone, my primary Smartphone of choice was an unlocked Treo 650. Just months prior I had been using Palm's latest GSM model, the Treo 680, which I later sold on eBay because it sucked so badly (mainly poor battery life). The 650, much like the OS it runs, was tired and showing its age.

Unfortunately the long winding road has reached an end. A dead end. Palm is a dead platform. The OS that we know today as Garnet (PalmOS version 5) has lived well beyond its shelf life, and is built upon on a creaky and woefully obsolete single-tasking framework with an ancient GUI that hasn't seen improvement in nearly a decade. To make matters worse, Garnet's successor is roughly two years away, and potentially may be vaporware like the failed development project that preceded it, a never to-be-seen OS called Cobalt. Too little, too late.

Since the iPhone entered my gadget collection, it has permanently displaced Palm from my list of devices. OSX is everything PalmOS should have been but never came to be. Apple has taken interface elegance and software innovation to a whole new level. iPhone eliminated the need for Palm in my mobile computing lifestyle. I can't even stand looking at PalmOS, let alone having to use it. So, it is with some sadness that I have to report that I am dumping the platform for good. Last weekend I handed down my poor careworn Treo 650 to my niece, where the device will probably end up gathering dust because she doesn't understand how to use it, and shows little interest.

For the first time in nearly a decade I am without a Palm device. Time to move on.

iPhone has rekindled an excitement within me, for mobile tech, that I haven't felt since the early days of PalmOS when the platform was new and fresh, with fanatical development and innovation taking place in all directions. iPhone is the new Palm.

I'll always look back fondly on the platform that started it all and sparked my passion for gadgets. But the past is history, and it's time to migrate to growth platforms.

Bye bye Palm, thanks for the memories.

So how many of you out there are syncing your iPhones with a Mac vs. PC? Are you using both platforms? Vote in the poll below.

[poll=3]

the iPhone drew me back in hour-by-hour over the weekend and I just could no longer resist it so I just picked up a new iPhone at the Apple store a couple hours ago. Over the weekend I tried using a Nokia N95 tethered with a N800 and both are excellent devices in their own way and I actually found some new applications for the N95 that made me like it even more. However, the Apple iPhone is slick and so refreshing after using other Palm, embedded Linux, Windows Mobile, and Symbian devices over the last 10 years that I was pulled back to it.

Welcome back Matt. We saved you a glass of Kool-Aid.

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Tech writer Steve Gilmorr grabs his Sanyo Xacti cam and hits the headquarters of Salesforce.com to interview Marc Benioff, Doc Searls, Dan Farber, Robert Scoble, and other technocrats to share opinions on various topics including iPhone and Microsoft's waning dominance. Enjoy.

I don't know who this guy is but his parody is brilliant, if raunchy.

ReadSource

Among the dull roar of criticisms about iPhone I have to endure, one in particular stands out as the most irritating and unfounded - the attack against AT&T. I hear these slanderous indictments all the time..."Why did Apple choose AT&T?", "AT&T sucks! They should have gone with Verizon or Sprint", "AT&T is evil". Blah blah blah.

Here's a bit of schooling for you numbskulls - What you don't understand is that the quality and reliability of wireless service in the U.S. is subjective and varies from one location to another. For example, in my specific locale, Sprint offers the worst reliability and coverage of any major carrier. T-Mobile is practically non-existent. Verizon offers great service, but their selection of handsets is abysmal. So, for all practical purposes, AT&T is the "best" wireless carrier for me. Your experience will vary. A friend of mine who lives in Redmond Washington (no, it isn't Bill Gates) says that T-Mobile offers the best coverage and voice quality in his area, while Sprint is teh suck. So which one of us is right? We both are.

Unlike other parts of the world like Asia and Europe, wireless infrastructure in North America is less ubiquitous and unevenly distributed. This is the reason why we suffer through so many dropped calls, poor voice quality, and latency.

So yes, AT&T does suck. And so does Verizon. So does Sprint. So does T-Mobile. And so on. There is no "best" wireless carrier, only best in your location. Live it, learn it, be it.

A study published by USA Today shows that out of 200 iPhone users polled, 90% were "extremely" or "very" satisfied with their device. Take any these consumer surveys with a grain of salt and a shot of whiskey, the numbers and methodology used is always suspect. But if this percentage scales accurately to a larger demographic, this is an unprecedented number for customer satisfaction in a mobile device.

Apple's marketing PR man Greg Joswiak gave this soundbite...

Greg Joswiak, Apple's vice president of worldwide marketing for the iPod and iPhone, said positive word-of-mouth reaction is "critically important" to any product, as it was with the iPod. "We're getting even greater reaction to the iPhone," he says.

I have to give the utmost credit to Apple for pulling off this product launch in an unparalleled way. They executed brilliantly and succeeded in creating a first generation product that "gets it right" out of the box.

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Here's my thinking. Apple has worked hard to become a company not solely dependent for its success on Christmas sales. For years Apple would run at break-even for three quarters then make nearly all its profit for the year in the Christmas quarter, which used to be the fourth quarter and was later changed to the first fiscal quarter for exactly this reason. While monster quarters are nice, what's even better is selling huge numbers of units all year long, which much more efficiently uses infrastructure and results in stock prices that go up, up, and up. Apple has lately done a pretty good job of smoothing earnings thanks to the iPod and iTunes, which has grown so fast that holiday sales have become almost inconsequential. But in order to make this work Apple has to deliver new products all year, they have to exceed customer expectations on a regular basis and, of course, they have to manage those expectations so they'll have a benchmark to exceed.

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Since the iPhone has now been out for nearly two weeks, and for many of you that purchased iPhones at an Apple Store that means your evaluation period is due to expire, now comes the question - Will you keep your shiny new toy, or will it be returned? Answer the poll the below.

[poll=2]

To conserve even more battery power I downgraded screen brightness to 35%, which believe it or not is as bright as my Treo 650 set at 65%. I don’t know who Apple contracted to manufactures these LCDs but it outshines everything else out there, literally. The same is true for color saturation and balance as well. I synced my copy of Pirates of the Caribbean that I had purchased off of iTunes to the iPhone (I’ll get to video playback later) and the color and picture sharpness was absolutely eye popping, as one would expect from a device so focused on multimedia capabilities.

At the risk of repetition, the OS continues to wow and impress me the more I use. I’m still awestruck at the fluid nature of the UI. As I said before, after you’ve immersed yourself in the iPhone user interface, you wonder why no one thought of this sooner. Standard smartphone platforms feel so primitive in comparison. How anyone could even look at a Blackberry after using an iPhone is beyond me. Windows Mobile, maybe (remotely plausible). PalmOS is so pathetically out of this league, to compare it with iPhone/OSX is like holding a vintage 1989 Sony Walkman cassette player up against an iPod. It's a joke. Every Treo user should do themselves a favor by donating their smartphone to a third world country, where it belongs. OTPC = One Treo Per Child. Just glue a hand crank to the side of the Treo 680 and maybe there's hope form Palm overall.

Clearly Apple put a great deal of research into designing the right navigation method for user interaction and input. The interface is easier to use and navigate than PalmOS, multitasks more seamlessly and thoughtfully than Windows Mobile, and simplifies connectivity tasks better than Symbian. It’s as if Apple took the best qualities of each platform and rolled them together.

But even more shocking to me, running such complex software – where are the crashes? Shouldn’t my iPhone have locked up on me by now? Again I have to ask this painfully obvious question - how is that Apple, being a relative newcomer to this market, managed to create with such ease a mobile operating system so fast, efficient, stable, and reliable, when device makers with years of experience and pedigree have managed to create such flawed, slow, inefficient, and generally poorly designed software?

Were this a Windows Mobile device I’d be staring at a spinning hourglass as I tap on the screen and make selections, waiting for the OS to perform even basic tasks.

If iPhone were running PalmOS it would be crashing hourly or at the drop of a pin, with a putrefied DOS-era interface to boot.

If it were Symbian under the hood I’d be pecking through menus looking for some feature setting painfully buried away in an unintuitive interface.

And yet Apple did it. I don’t know how, and the dubious side of my brain keeps waiting for some ugly truth to reveal itself, beneath the elegant veneer. Like meeting a beautiful woman in a bar, who smiles back at you, revealing a mouthful of rotting teeth. So far I haven’t stumbled upon any dark cloaked secrets or locked closet doors. And that makes me somehow ever MORE skeptical. This can’t be right, can it? Something MUST be wrong somewhere.

Well there are a few areas that are less than perfect. Aside from the unpredictable predictive spelling, there are number minute features and functions that I would like to see added or changed significantly. One item that I was disappointed by is that background wallpaper is only utilized on sleep/wake. You can set any picture as your wallpaper, which is nice, but you’ll only see when iPhone is wakened. I’d like to see Apple enable background wallpaper on the home screen, with an opacity level adjustment allowing the user to darken and obscure photos so as not to interfere visibility of home screen icons. That’s a minor niggle, I know, but I care about the minutia.

Second, the iPhone interface doesn’t have permanent scrollbar framework. You scroll up or down simply by making sliding gestures with your fingers. That works beautifully! However, if scrollbars aren’t shown it’s not always apparent when a document continues on. I noticed this several times when reading an email or webpage. I would mistakenly assume that I had reached the end of document when in fact it continued on. If visible scrollbars were present I would have known to keep scrolling. Such as it is, you have to basically guess this by continuing to scroll until you encounter a rubber banding feedback effect where the document bounces back again, indicating that you’ve reached the end of the road. That works of course, but I still prefer having some form of indication, be it a scrollbar or a tiny arrow, indicating that I NEED to continue scrolling. But as with the wallpaper thing, this is a minor detail.

Now onto a potentially more worrisome issue, if it is an issue. I haven’t yet spent enough time testing the device to draw hard conclusions, but given my extensive experience with wireless devices, I am beginning to suspect that iPhone has some reception issues in areas of weak coverage. I say this because, having travelled with my iPhone in locations where AT&T coverage in my area is known to be poor, my iPhone has several times lost coverage COMPLETELY - as in NO SERVICE, where other smartphones I own maintain active connection, however weak. Again I stress that I need to spend much more time before placing a period at the end of that sentence, but as Poirot famously said, “My little grey cells are busy”.

Battery life is another feature that needs to be thoroughly tested before passing judgment, but based on what I’ve experienced so far I feel comfortable is saying that it is every bit as good as claimed. And once again that opens more questions that indict incumbent smartphone players who preached so loudly that in no way could such a thin device, with a large 3.5” display powered by a desktop class OS under the hood, offer even barely tolerable battery longevity. But it does. So I ask, once again, how is that such a product DOES offer these qualities while you numbskulls at Nokia and RIM can’t even produce a touchscreen device? Shouldn’t my Windows Mobile powered HTC S620 deliver TWICE the battery life of iPhone rather than a meager percentage more? Shouldn’t my Treo 650 with its brick-like form factor and puny postage stamp sized display go days on end without needing recharged? A foul oder of lies and excuses is blowing past my nose, and it ain’t coming from Cupertino. I’m beginning to think handset makers have sat on their hands for years using battery consumption and hardware requirements as an excuse for their lack of innovation. Knock knock fellas, this is your wake up call.

Ok, so that rant is out of the way, for now. I’ll brow beat the handset industry further another day.

For now I will turn my attention back towards Apple. How about brow beating iPhone for a change? Sound good? Alrighty then, how about this – iPhone is only compatible with the included earphones provided by Apple. You read that right. How is that possible you ask? Well the geniuses (and I don’t mean the Genius Bar employees at your local Apple Store) at Apple made one of the dumbest and easily avoidable design mistakes ever made. The iPhone’s headphone jack is countersunk within the brushed metal enclosure, made precisely the same diameter as the iPhone/iPod earphone connector. This means you can NOT ( I stess NOT) use the iPhone with your favorite pair of earphones, or in-car audio adapters.

I have a pair of Shure headphones that are now useless. Thank God I didn’t buy that pair of $60 Senheizer earphones I was about to purchase. If the iPhone has any serious design flaw, surely this is it. Apple could have a least thrown us a bone by including some kind of mini adapter enabling compatibility with standard headphones, but no. The reason why I am shouting so loudly from my soapbox is because this shortcoming is so blatantly unnecessary and avoidable. There is absolutely no reason why such a trivial yet damaging decision was made in the iPhone’s design. Flat out, this was a dumbest decision on Apple’s part.

I’m not finished yet. As wonderful as iPhone, and believe me it honestly is, I still disagree with Apple’s decision to lock out development. As it is, iPhone feels like an empty treasure chest. You have this absolutely amazing smartphone running the a mobile operating system that utterly awe inspring, that puts everything else to shame. And yet the more you use the iPhone the more you want it do, but can’t. I feel like we are all waiting for the other shoe to drop - that Apple has something up its sleeve they aren’t showing us yet, and that’s probably the case. But as it is, I feel like I’m being served a delicious appetizer as I wait impatiently for the main course to arrive. The question is when it will arrive.

Apple seems to have concentrated on getting iPhone’s core functionality and operating system right rather than worry about extending its capabilities. In that regard they passed with flying colors. iPhone is far more advanced, far more reliable, and far more innovative than any other device or software platform on the market today - not only surpassing the competition but making them look stupid in the process; a feat that Apple prides itself upon.

And yet the more I use my iPhone the more it leaves me wanting more. It’s like watching a new blockbuster film only halfway through. What happens next? Apple is leaving me in suspense! My instincts in guessing where device makers are heading are usually pretty good, and in this case I think Apple has a winning hand that it isn’t ready to show just yet, and I can’t say I blame them. Step one was generating hype, silencing the critics, winning analysts, and growing an iconic status before the product even shipped. They managed to pull that off marvelously. My hunch is that by the fourth quarter of this year we are going see some rather shocking and interesting surprises from Apple in the form of value added software and features.

And now comes one of those scandalous rumors that I love spreading, but I spoke with a “source” (you know it’s credible whenever the word source is used within quotations) that Apple does in fact plan opening the iPhone to third party developers. It’s not a matter of if, but when. The exact words my source used was…”you’ll be hearing some interesting “news” on that later this year”.

That winds up the third portion of my so called “initial impressions” pseudo review. I’ll be posting more later in the coming days.

So far my overall impressions are best condensed into one sound bite - iPhone is an absolutely amazing first generation product that surpasses even third and fourth generation smartphones, which are now best described as dumbphones by comparison.

Does the iPhone live up to the hyperbole? Is the device really as cool as it looks? Even more important – is it a practical device to use or just an expensive, but impressive, luxury gadget? I can’t fully answer the philosophical aspects until I’ve used the iPhone for a longer period of time. Two weeks is my usual period for test modeling a product before passing final judgment. But in this case I will share my initial impressions and experiences. Some good, some not so good.

The first reaction I had was to the box itself when the AT&T salesman brought it out of the stock room. It’s REALLY puny. Not that packaging or size matters (cough) but somehow I was expecting a larger box.

Unboxing an Apple product is an event best experienced with friends. It’s like a Tupperware party for gadget freaks. Drinks are poured, and everyone gathers around for the big moment. In this case I skipped the spectacle and tore right into the package. Just me, my camera, and a sense of resolve.

After opening the box the iPhone is the first thing you see, presented as if on a pillow. Like a jewelry box. You are immediately struck by two things about the iPhone. First is the build quality – it is absolutely solid! I mean solid in terms of feel.The back of the unit is comprised of a brushed metal that feels absolutely wonderful. Elegantly designed and very firm in your grasp. No worries about dropping the device or having it suddenly slip out of your hand. iPhone feels extremely durable. I have no hesitation whatsoever carrying this device “naked” in my pocket.

It’s also slightly heavier than I expected. Not heavy in the abstract sense, but heavier than you would expect for a device so small and thin. But that lends to its durable feel and robust construction. As I said, it doesn’t feel delicate or fragile and that was something that concerned me prior to examining the product. In fact iPhone is probably the most solid and durable smartphone I have ever used, and that says a lot because I have used dozens of smartphone products. Now for the good stuff…

First let me give you a bit of background. I am what you might call a mobile expert in smartphones. I have years of experience reviewing and testing every popular mobile platform and devices on the market – Blackberry, PalmOS, Symbian OS (that’s Nokia), Windows Mobile, you name it. So I am approaching the iPhone from the view of an advanced PDA user, not a casual cell phone user.

As advertised, the iPhone requires docking with a Mac or PC prior to activation. You cannot simply power on the iPhone and begin making calls. Upon connecting the iPhone (Aside: Apple simultaneously released a new version of iTunes on Friday which integrates iPhone support, required download), iTunes will launch and the setup process begins. Both Apple and AT&T did a fabulous job developing this brilliant new method for phone activation. This new model is a radical departure from the status quo method of phone purchasing. You simply buy the iPhone, take it home, activate it and pick your voice/data plan from the comfort and privacy of your home. No commissioned salespeople to hassle you or sucker you into services you don’t need or want. It’s brilliant!

The whole process from start to finish takes a matter of minutes. In my case I was an existing AT&T wireless customer. My contract was up for renewal so that simplified the process even more.

Once you activate the iPhone, it’s all yours and you can begin immersing yourself in the software. Let’s start there – software. As I said I come from an extensive smartphone background, so I am accustomed to Windows Mobile, PalmOS, Symbian and Blackberry. Even at this early stage of the review process I can say without any hesitation the software running on iPhone (a modified version of OSX) far outclasses anything before it. Every other smartphone platform I mentioned above belongs on the Antique Roadshow -they are all inferior to iPhone. The level by which OSX outclasses other smartphone software is so great that to put in metaphoric terms; it’s like the transition from the era of command line interface to the GUI interface back in the early 1990’s. How badly does iPhone humiliate other platforms? Well, have you ever passed someone driving a moped - you know, those losers who had their drivers license revoked? Yeah, it's like that.

Apple has just changed the game, and no one has the software that can match the OSX experience.

I had a number of doubts about the idea of running a complex desktop class OS on mobile devices, but somehow Apple managed to pull it off. First off is performance. One would expect such a “bloated” codebase to perform like a pig stuck in molasses – but it doesn’t! OSX flies. No waiting, no hesitation, no spinning beach ball of death. iPhone is snappy and instantly responds to user input. My past experience with mobile platforms has shown me that the bigger and more complex the software, the worse it performs and less reliable it becomes. Not so in this case, and that is shocking to me.

And this opens a whole can of questions about contemporary smartphone platforms. How is that Apple managed to shoehorn a desktop OS into a phone and make it sing, while Microsoft and Nokia (Symbian) can’t get their own puny thumbprint-sized mobile platforms to perform at even tolerable speed? Could it be these companies are burning the candle from the wrong end? Is the right development model in taking advanced desktop class code and tweaking it down to mobile form factor, rather than trying to make an anemic brain-dead mobile OS try to do something it can’t? I think iPhone is a harbinger of things to come. It wouldn’t surprised me to see Microsoft axe Windows Mobile altogether, or relegate it to low-end phones, and instead bring its Windows Vista (NT) codebase onto mobile devices, just as we’re seeing now with UMPC. Of all the contenders I see Microsoft being the only one who can innovate and answer Apple’s challenge. Nokia and RIM are hopelessly lost in this fight. As for Palm, well…that OS was already dead.

The interface is fluid, and active. Every function responds in some visual way to your touch. Being a PDA guy I was apprehensive and certain that my instinctive reaction would be painful because the interface is navigated by digits rather than a stylus. I expected to have the same reaction to iPhone as I did with my Nokia E61 and Windows Mobile Smartphone edition devices – in that I would power on the device and immediately reach for a stylus that wasn’t there. To my astonishment, not only wasn’t that the case but quite the contrary the whole concept of tapping on a mobile display with a tiny plastic toothpick now seems archaic and almost alien to me. What I initially thought was a crazy idea is now proving to be a stroke of genius. Part of the success in this method of manipulation is due to the materials used on outer surface, which is a smooth high quality glass faceplace that feels wonder and quite natural to touch and interact with. Scrolling works EXACTLY as show in demos and works beautifully! To make a selection you simply tap gently on the screen and the device responds to your touch.

Still, as great as mobile OSX is, it’s clear this is version 1.0 software (Aside: that really is the actual build number in the system info screen, Version 1.0). One of the badly lacking features within the GUI environment is a method for going back to the previously access application. Here’s a scenario that illustrates my point; Say you’re browsing the web in Safari and want to read your email. You hit the home button, tap on email, and that takes you to there. Now say you want to go back to the web page you were viewing. How do you do that? You do it by hitting home again. Then tapping Safari. Maybe I’ve been hanging around PDAs too long but in my mind a function button should be located in the top left or bottom right that enables me to go directly my previously used app rather than making the process two steps. But perhaps I’m wrong. I did stumble upon a few problems with iPhone.

I notice that screen calibration needs some work, and is sometimes imprecise. On several occasions when tapping on an item the iPhone incorrectly selected the adjacent item above or below where I actually tapped. Some refinement needs to be done there. Still, that anomaly seems to be uncommon. Fortunately.

I’m pleased to report the keyboard isn’t remotely as bad as we thought, but it does take getting used to before you achieve good input results. The first 24 hours I have has a “Mossberg moment”. By that I mean that, as Walt Mossberg stated in his review I wanted to throw the device out the window. It was absolute disaster. I was pressing wrong keys, spelling words that looked more Polish than English. But after 48 hours of testing, results are completely different. What changed? Well what changed is that I was initially tapping the onscreen keys in the same manner as I would on a Treo or Blackberry. I discovered the secret to manipulating iPhone’s software keyboard is to tap lightly with the very tips of your fingers, not the whole fingertip. Believe it or not, it isn’t difficult at all. It just takes some a little practice to acclimate yourself. I don’t see this as issue any longer. Not for me anyway.

One problem that is VERY common is the predictive auto-correct spelling feature that anticipates your misspellings and makes assumptions about intended dictionary words. Based on my experience so far I call this feature broken or worthless. iPhone repeatedly failed to guess my intentional spelling and worse it offered words not even remotely associated with my intention. For example, when spelling the word “Move” as I typed m-o-v, the pop up beneath the text entry field came back with words like “overture”. Not guessing the right word is one thing, but miscalculation that involves words that don’t even start with the same LETTER of the alphabet is another. Apple needs to do a lot more work there.

I’ll be posting another “First Impressions” post later today covering more details about the iPhone. Lots more to cover. Stay tuned.

Please excuse my absence for the past 24 hours. I am still basking in iPhone afterglow, having spent most of my time heavily engaged in taste testing the Jesus phone, putting it through its paces. Before I get into my impressions of the device (spoiler: It is AMAZING!) I thought I would share my experiences that led up to actually getting the phone. Some of the things I discovered from my adventure were just as enlightening, and entertaining, as the iPhone itself.

I started out yesterday, the holy day of iPhone sacrament, by breaking off early around noon and headed off to my nearest AT&T corporate store in Fort Wayne Indiana. There are actually two such stores in this big Midwestern town masquerading as a city. The first is located in a small plaza tucked away adjacent to Best Buy. I scoped out this store first only to see what, if any, activity was taking place. When I arrived no one was there, save for the store manager dressed spit and polish in a business suit pacing outside the store, talking on his cell phone, like a nervous host waiting for party guests to arrive. But the guests were a no show. This lulled me into a false sense of security. I thought perhaps the iPhone launch might be a bust in my locale, with no lines and no waiting. Great! Sort of.

The thought of sitting in my truck for the next six hours, looking like an iStalker , didn’t appeal to me so I decided to break for lunch before heading over to the second AT&T store located within an indoor mall at Glenbrook Square. That was a mistake, because I foolishly washed down my Quarter pounder (made with real Afghanistan Beef) with a half-liter of Coke. Pee Pee time.

I arrived at Glenbrook Mall around 1:00, heading straight for the AT&T Store, located next to a J.C Penny…and a massive decorative water fountain (remember that Coke I drank? Yeah). Whoa! What’s this? A line! A line of iCampers in its early stages had begun to form outside the store behind a prearranged section of stantions. Show time!

I immediately went back to my truck, grabbed my folding chair and MacBook and proceeded to join the great iWait. Fortunately for me the line was very small. I was actually sixth, but a kid at the very front had been there since early morning. Apparently his Dad had agreed to purchase an iPhone for him and he waited anxiously for this moment since January. The mood was very festive and everyone enjoyed the comradery, sharing stories and tidbits of information about iPhone. I met a guy who runs a popular Ford Focus street modding enthusiast site called FocalJet. We had a great time discussing all the iPhone hoo-ha and shared our opinions on mobile technology and computing in general.

Now I’m not one to pass compliments upon a wireless carrier because frankly they are all demonic institutions whose goal is to pick our pockets every time we press a button on our phone, but in this case I really have to give kudos to AT&T for handling this product launch in a very professional, enthusiastic, and almost Apple-like fashion. The store manager and employees came out to greet each of us who were part of the early crowd. Shook hands. Questioned us about our interest in the phone. Handed us rate plan fliers and iPhone product FAQ sheets. Made certain that we understood the plans and contact terms to ensure no surprises. She seemed to actually grasp the significance of this product launch and enjoyed being part of it. That is a rare quality.

The line quickly evolved as the 4:30pm store closing milestone approached. As more people came in line I noticed a trend – lots of Smartphone users, almost universally a BlackBerry of some form. Analysts who predict that iPhone won’t impact RIM sales my be proven wrong. That’s going to be true for corporate and government sales, but consumer BlackBerry users are going to upgrade.

Another interesting revelation - I spotted a handful of Treos as well, but all except one were Windows Mobile 700w models carried by Verizon users about to switch to AT&T.– most of the BlackBerry users I chatted with had upgraded FROM a Treo and they hated PalmOS. Most were actually surprised that I “still” use a Treo. Palm is in serious trouble, and I don’t mean from iPhone. They aren’t going to survive because the perception is that Palm is an old platform (and brand) that was given up long ago, supplanted by Blackberry. After what I witnessed yesterday, I doubt even Palm’s adoption of Windows Mobile to can reverse that image. Palm is the Sony Walkman of mobile platforms. It’s what we all started out with and then moved on to something better. That perception is the kiss of death.

At 4:30 the store closed its doors as promised, and momentum picked up and enthusiasm began to build. Store employees ate pizza, drank soda, and worked busily taking down existing iPhone banners that boasted iPhone’s upcoming arrival date, and replaced them with even larger banners that read “iPhone has Arrived!”. Employees also setup a giant iPhone kiosk display, and in one light hearted moment, the store manager knocked on the window from within the store and flaunted the iPhone in front of the kid who was first in line. Everyone laughed. Good times.

By 5:30 things began getting a bit more serious. People getting off work were quickly filling the back rolls forming a winding snake-like line growing beyond the pre-configured stantions. I don’t know how many customers AT&T was expecting for this specific location, but the fact the line extended well beyond the stantions and required crowd herding by mall security guards was an indication they exceeded those expectations.

By 5:50pm those that were sitting on the floor were now on their feet. Those of us who brought chairs and laptops quickly packed our gear in preparation for the blessed moment. At 5:59pm the store manager was outside chatting up the crowd, jokingly taunting the us that her watch showed only 5:55. It’s a rare moment to see adults behave like giddy school children, but we were all pumped. When the clock struck 6:00, we were allowed in by allotments of six persons. Luckily I was in the first wave, being sixth in line.

I didn’t even look at the demo iPhone unit prominently on display. Instead I bolted straight for the first available salesperson. The transaction was short and sweet. I gave him my name, mobile phone number, and social. Told him what phone I wanted. He went to the stock room to get my 8GB iPhone (aside: NO ONE in line wanted the 4GB model) - rang up my order. I paid - he placed my iPhone in a sealed AT&T bag (which was a bit strange). I left, returned home 35 minutes later (it’s a 45 mile drive between Fort Wayne and my home) and ripped the package apart like a 10 year old child on Christmas morning.

Part deux; my iPhone impressions. Coming next.

Well here I am, as the song says, wasting my time in the waiting line. What in god's name can I do to pass the time for the next five bloody hours? WiFi hotspots are few and far between, those that are available are either private networks or open but extremely weak. sigh

This is it kiddies, the night before the great Apple apocolypse plunges the western world into chaos. Already iPhone fanboys and gadget whores are camping out in front of Apple stores like street corner crack addicts at a methadone clinic. 24 hours before this six month long roller-coaster ride finally comes to stop - or derails...whichever happens first. I'm already feeling burned out from all the hype and drama this past week, it feels like I've been waiting in line since Monday sharing a seat next to Mr. iLoser - the flies and the hype are starting to get to me. So much so that iPhone has lost some of its luster in my mind. The mystery is gone. But not my excitement.

So, circumstances permitting, sometime tomorrow I will be heading off to an AT&T store to get my iPhone fix along with the rest of the tech crazed junkies in line. Whether I will return successfully or not remains to be seen and that thought scares the hell out of me. Waiting in line for an iPhone and coming home empty handed is one thing. Being the editor of one of the most popular iPhone blogs and coming home without an iPhone is disastrous! The possibility that my readers will get an iPhone long before me is a very real possibility. But enough of my whining.

Whatever happens, I want to wish everyone good luck tomorrow. Hopefully we will all manage to score an iPhone. Those of you that are successful in your quest, please feel free to send me your first impressions and photos to kentATgearboxmedia.net (replace AT with @). I would love to post your story. Have fun!

David Pogue is tired of answering your stupid questions, so he published a list of stupidly asked questions that he hopes will finally shut you up. Some interesting tidbits revealed in his FAQ include

• You CAN'T USE a screen protector on the screen - it requires direct contact with fingertips to work. That means no stylus access either.
• iPhone cannot be used as attached storage device, like an iPod. So you can forget about using iPhone as an expensive USB thumbdrive. Sorry.
• Safari bookmarks on your Mac (and PC) can be synced with iPhone. That's good news.
• iPhone's Bluetooth radio can only be paired with its headset, and nothing else. NOTHING else.

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Valleywag has compiled details culled from fab four of reviews, and given each point a numerical value. Is it just me or do the folks at Valleywag have too much free time on their hands?

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Industry insiders are questioning what impact Apple's new iPhone could have on the nascent mobile music market (say that three times fast). Even though iPhone is destined for greatness, it still doesn't change the model for music distribution by tethering users to a desktop rather than OTA (Over The Air) for purchasing and downloading content.

Some analysts, however, say mobile music sales will be dampened as long as users are limited to loading music on their phones via their PCs and Macintosh computers, and blocked from buying music wirelessly. "The whole idea of on-the-go instant gratification isn't there," said Ted Cohen, managing partner of media consulting firm Tag Strategic.

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