So, I'm definitely not an apple fanboy. I own a plethora of ipods of various screeds, a mini and an apple tv, but most of those have actually been gifts (thanks to those who support my gadget habit). They all work reasonably well. I mostly use the ipods either when I'm traveling, or as an mp3 player for my car. The mini is sitting a shelf at the moment, it was my desktop machine for a while, but being the G4 version, its just too slow, and was from the moment it came out. I love the form factor, and if it had the remote that the new one has, I'd probably throw it on my entertainment system. The Apple TV works reasonably well, the video quality is kind of annoying but it can be convenient. I don't agree with some friends that its lack of being able to buy things on the tv is a problem. Maybe it would be nice to do something like "get a season pass for this show" or "get the next episode of this show", but honestly, it takes too long for shows to download, and the interface is too limited for me to really pine for it. Its not like laptops are ever that far away in our house.

When the iPhone was announced, I took a look and said "cool, but". I'm a Treo 700p user, I upgraded almost immediately from my 650 for the faster network connection, and I'm pretty happy. Most cell phone interfaces suck, but I'd say that the Palm interface is the best of a sad lot. So, I'm certainly happy that Apple is taking its hand at things, hoping this will breathe some life into this space.

But... my qualms are probably the same as most people, and this possible first review mostly confirms them. The connectivity is too slow, especially with the high price, and a 2yr contract with Cingular for that price? Ugh.

I've had two cell phones before, back when I was too reluctant to give up my StarTac, and the best connected pda available was the Danger Hiptop, and it was limited to T-Mobile. But, the hiptop was a fad for me, because the connectivity sucked: T-mobile used Cingular's GPRS network. Now, I'm sure the connectivity has improved in the years since then, but the speed hasn't.

And its probably worse, since the data plan cost from Cingular is even more expensive now than my old t-mobile plan. So, I could think about buying an iPhone as a replacement iPod, but for $600 plus at least $30/month for 2 years... $1320 for an ipod? Not. If I could get it without any wireless service and just use the wi-fi, then its just a double the price zune with probably a much better interface. If my work gave me one, I wouldn't turn it down, I guess, but it just seems highly unlikely that I'd buy one.