iPhone Phanatics

I started out on PC's, went to Macs fairly early on, and now I have both in one with my Intel MacMini. Even during all my Mac years I owned a PC, it just didn't get turned on much. I've been as enthusiastic a Mac convert as most Mac users, but in regard to all the hype surrounding Apple's new iPhone, i just have to say... get a life people! My 60 gig iPod has 8,000+ songs on it, a few games, 1500 pictures of Tasmania, the entire New Testament, and 3 or 4 entire series of TV from 'Blakes 7' to 'Chasers War on Everything', as well as about 80 episodes of the comedy podcast 'Channel Frederator'. It gets used every day, and that means its also very scratched.

Now we've got the iPhone. Enthusiastists camped out at Apple's stores for days before they came out to ensure they got one, but what exactly did they actually get for their money? As I see it, there are going to be quite a few problems with the iPhone.

1. Battery Life - Apple have been touting some pretty amazing times, and I frankly don't believe them. Anything with a screen is going to chew through power.
2. Size - this thing is just too BIG to be a phone. Sure it looks great, but its too heavy to comfortably sit in your pocket, and your keys are going to scratch it to a terrible state in no time at all.
3. Storage - its hard to understand why anyone would buy one given there are 60 gig iPods out there versus the iPhone's 8 gig. The batteries can give you 7 hours of video, but can you fit 7 hours of video on the iPhone?
4. Cost - the iPhone is about 10 times the iPods cost per gig of storage. 'OK', you say, 'but its a phone not a media player'.
5. Support - all the rest of us in other countries may, or may not, be able to find a service provider who supports it. Even if we do, it'll cost us an arm and a leg to subscribe to one.

The problem is that Apple aren't really pushing it as a phone, they're trying to sell you on the idea that its a pocket computer that can also make calls. That means a lot of people are going to be disappointed when the shine wears off and they wake up to the fact they could have bought a laptop for the same price. I predict in the next few weeks, we'll see a lot of "I bought an iPhone and wish I hadn't" stories.