iFlop or iFantastic?

Depends on your point of view... watching the ads and Apple's own clips demoing iPhone features it's only fair to conclude that the iPhone is the best iPod ever. Also, as a viewer of picture shots and short videos (like the YouTube stuff) it promises to be one sweet experience. Coverflow, automatic portrait to landscape orientation are just a few real cool new features we've always wished the iPods had.

Even for web-browsing and quick downloads of mails and such in the neighborhood of WLANs via its Wi-Fi capability the iPhone has some great features, reminiscent of MSFT's 'Surface', that promise to steal the hearts and minds of geeks and alike.

How about the 'phone' part of the story though? The iPhone is above all a phone, innit? Well, we'll have to wait and see. Initial reports are not... too encouraging! Fine... the GUI is one sweet thing, the 'Surface' touch screen experience promises to elevate you to a nirvana of orgasmic hightech pleasures... but have you just thought of this? You'll need two hands to do the job... Say WHAT? Well, check any picture published on the web of people using the iPhone: Two hands! Like the kid in the picture above testing a sample iPhone with his sister in the Manhattan 5th avn Apple Store and like the Afro-American dude on the low left end of the same shot (I know that much because the 2 kids are a colleague's, vacationing in Manhattan as we speak... only to tease me, she shot and sent me the MMC by using her simple Nokia 6230). Can you imagine the practical implications of that need-4-2-hands issue alone? I am sure folks with long and fine fingers reminiscent of the saints depicted in Eastern Orthodox religious icons will eventually manage to learn and use one hand with their spaghetti-like fingers not touching the screens on multiple unintended spots. But this is going to be an issue. Forget about calling someone while driving or even sending an SMS. A 50 euro cheap Nokia can do the job a lot better, if you ask me.

And scenes like Matt Damon in "The Departed" sending SMSs blindly with the phone in his pocket remain to be seen on an iPhone... I'll have to see to believe this...Which reminds me, how about the blind and the visually impaired at the 'older' side of the age demographics? They could still get trained to touch real buttons, right? Soft keys? Maybe not such a great idea after all! If it was, how come we are still using traditional keyboards and not fancy reconfigurable soft ones? Expensive solution for what it is, you said? Abso-f*ckin'-lutely!!!

It was expected of course... the iPhone is a 1st generation device for Apple in the cell-phone marketplace. They always wanted to change the user 'experience' and they've sure done a great UI, but, sometimes you got to be practical. No SIM cards, no worn-out battery replacement by casual end-users, need for two hands and saint-like fingers, and per some reports insufficient signal... well, it qualifies for the best part of an iFlop award...

I wonder how long it will take Apple to extract some of the iPhone's functionality and create a new class of iPods with everything the iPhone has except for its EDGE and CDMA/GSM support. I'd buy one of those in a heartbeat!