You can take the iPhone and shove it!

I know I know, ANOTHER iphone blog post.

I just had to chime in because I can't help but feel like the majority of blogs out there put the iphone on a pedestal that only is usually reserved for the Gods.

Lets look at the facts:

iPhone Pros:

#1 Few phones have generated such consumer fervor.
#2 Few phones have such "sex appeal".
#3 no other phone has been made by Apple.
#4 Few other phones have inspired such emulation.


BUT!

iPhone Cons:

#1 You MUST use AT&T as your carrier.(Which may not be the worst thing in the world, but its really a question of being severely limited when it comes to carriers)
#2 If you bought early you got hosed big time in the price department and you were still required to sign a 2 yr contract.
#3 If you bought the 1st gen then you had to make excuses for your snail like 2g web browsing capability.
#4 Finger prints, nuf said.

To me Apple has really lost its way from the alternative, free spirited feel that it had when it introduced the ipod to the market. Now, Apple smells like the exclusive country club set who take pleasure in making sure you know that they think they're better than you.

When you talk with a Apple user, you come away feeling ashamed for even thinking that your non-Apple machine was super duper. (Even though the odds are that the same chip, the same harddrive, lcd screen, memory, nearly everything inside the Apple product is the same as the non-Apple product).

I think thats a crying shame given that the ipod gave users a feeling of independence. Yeah sure, iTunes was the only game in town for a while, but at least you could find bazillions of aftermarket accessories for dirt cheap.

Now, at least as far as electronic accessories (I.e. the video out cable and docking port) you need to go Straight to Apple and pay 2-3 times what the generics would cost. Why? Because in the latest gen ipod, Apple quietly snuck in software that will only allow video out if the cable being used has an electronic verification chip which enables the outgoing signal to transmit. Weak Apple! very Weak!

I concede that Jobs did a stellar job in the design of the first iPhone, but it seems that the new model has lost some of its good looks. It comes across as a little bloated and very shiny. Not good shiny like "oh my, look at that shiny new car!". More like, "oh geez that teen-aged pizza delivery boy really had a shiny face!"...thats called "bad shiny".

Technically well have to wait for "official" pictures to be released to pass final judgment.

I will end on a positive note. One thing I truly do thank Apple for is prompting consumers to demand "sexier" user interfaces.

Palm, Blackberry, Windows Mobile, they were all functional and they still are. But now that color screens are as common as air, the manufacturers are realizing that they have to do more than just throw the feature list up on the screen. They have to make it fun. More than anything else in my humble opinion, the iPhone made handheld mobiles fun and thats were the future of mobile lies.