This was just going to be a forum post, but you know me, I got carried away so I turned it into a news item.

So, I assume most all of you have seen or heard about the iPhone by now. I just got done watching the Macworld Keynotes Address in podcasts. And damn it if Steve didn't get me all wound up about the freaking phone and then break my heart.

In case you have been living in a hole, you can check out some info on the phone of course over at apple: http://www.apple.com/iphone/

So, anyway, basically, if you don't know, this phone is pretty much a smart phone on Uber setting. In true ultimate industrial design fashion, Apple has pretty much outdone everyone else when it comes to the smart phone. Some of the features are:...

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 Features:
-LCD touch screen face almost the size of the phone itself. No stylus, you use your fingers, and supposedly the thing is really smart to know what you are intending to touch and accidental touches, and there is a move called the pinch which lets you zoom out and in on pictures and web pages and such.
-sensors that know when you are holding it in wide screen or portrait mode, which it automatically switches between.
-sensors that know when you put it up to your face to automatically disable the touch screen so you aren't pushing buttons with your cheek.
-2.0 megapixel camera
-all sorts of wireless integrated stuff
-runs OS X

Phone:
-Sync Full Contacts into phone and use for making calls
-Ability to merge calls (like conference call)
-Voicemail: ability to view list of voicemails and skip to the ones you want first.
-SMS text messaging with history, showing conversations.

Internet Device:
-Safari Web Browser: Forget smartphone dumbed down versions of web pages, you basically get a thumbnail of the web page and use the pinch technique to zoom into the page and scan around it, and go into articles etc.
-Full rich HTML mail with pictures inline in email messages, just like your normal mail. (of course uses your contact list again for emails)
-Google maps: find directions and save locations for google maps, use email and phone information from google maps to call restaurants etc...google got on board for this one (not sure if they will be allowed to share the service with other manufacturers for other products or not) Oh yeah, and did I mention, satellite image view even works just like on google maps online.
-Widgets: for stuff like stocks and weather and such, I'm sure there will be plenty more by the release date.

Wide Screen Video iPod:
-photos just like a phone or iPod
-Cover Flow view of music in Wide Screen Mode (this is pretty cool looking and if you haven't tried it in iTunes, you owe it to yourself to play with it. Looks great, and is really functional for the 'I don't know what i am feeling like' days letting you flip through your albums visually)
-and of course it is a video iPod as well

The whole thing uses iTunes to manage and sync your stuff.

You can get a look at the full tech specs here: http://www.apple.com/iphone/technology/specs.html

So I was all wound up about this thing. Steve makes one hell of a pitch up there on stage. Then he got to the punch-lines, and man do I mean punch-lines:

1.) The iPhone will be available in 4GB and 8GB version, just like they most popular iPod, the nano.

2.) The iPhone will only be available through their new partner Cingular wireless (now part of AT&T). He went on to enforce that this is an exclusive multi-year contract.

I know some people might say that price is also a big punch line, I know one of my Mac loving coworkers said that was one reason she really wasn't interested in it. With the 4GB version priced at $500 and the 8GB at $600 the price is high if you think of it like a normal wireless phone you go get at your wireless dealer, or any smartphone you go get at your wireless dealer for that matter. Let's face it though, this is one of the best smart phones to be in the world right now, and Steve also had a point in saying that right now a smart phones average $300 and none of them do music well, so everyone buys an iPod anyway at $200. So that adds up to the price of the phone. Plus this phone really does everything better than the other smartphones from what I have seen of both. So to me, the price tag wasn't really a detractor, and I don't think it would be to anyone else spending hundreds on their iPods.

So, on to the other 2 punch-lines. Let's look at size first. 8GB max size, and what the heck were they thinking when they even offered it in a 4GB version. Are they serious about making this thing an iPod? I know, there are 4GB & 8GB nanos out there, and people keep buying them, they are really popular, but being an owner of a first generation 4GB one myself, I have to say. 4GB and 8GB is no where near enough space for even a music iPod. I now know this. When I got my iPod I diligently went to work figuring out what bitrate to encode my music at, and in the end decided to encode them at 192kbps (VBR) this is a little above where I felt the music felt full enough and didn't make me irritable after listening to it for long periods of time. Problem is this creates files that are on average about 7MB in size, so, subtract the 40MB from the iPod that is used for I have no idea what with nothing on it, you get about 565 songs. Now, I don't know about you guys, but I have a few more songs than that, that I would like to take with me from time to time. In fact, I finally got my whole CD collection encoded, and just my CDs, without any online purchased music etc... I have 2880 tracks which is 17.12GB in size. And this doesn't even take into account videos, podcasts, video podcasts, pictures, emails, contacts etc that will be taking up space on the iPhone. And for those of you that are into podcasts, especially video ones you know how fast they take up space on your iPod now. I have trouble doing automatic management on my iPod and try to cross it with manual management without much success. So anyway, for this thing to be a full video iPod I find the storage space unpractical.

Partnering exclusively with Cingular: Now this was the bigger killer for me. Not so much because Cingular looks like they suck, actually I always think they look like they have good deals, but in Iowa basically, there is no service anywhere outside of the bigger cities and spotty along some of the main roads. I mean from what I hear about people who have their service I can't believe they put up with it, they just don't have the coverage. I'm not sure what the situation is other places, but I would assume this would limit the user base greatly for Apple. One reason Steve said they needed the partner was for some of the phone and internet features, they basically needed someone to be able to set up the protocols and stuff for them to be able to use those features. I don't know what kind of money might be changing hands as part of the agreement too, but I would assume apple is getting nice checks, because this is going to put Cingular's user base through the freaking roof. I can see apple basically making Cingular THE cell phone company over night. Maybe this explosion will help to expand Cingular's coverage as well. But either way it seems like Apple is getting the bad end of this deal if there is no payment involved with it. 

OS X really?: I don't really understand why you only seem to be able to run widgets if it really is a full blown version of OS X. I mean it seems to me, that there isn't just one OS X. They had to rewrite it for intel processors and now I assume they rewrote a version for the iPhone. However, basically they said OS X had all the stuff they needed for the phone, so that is why they used it, so maybe it is more of a buffet where they took what they needed and left the rest, but I find it hard to believe they just opened an OS X box and installed it on the phone through the iPod link. 

Looks: so I wasn't really blown away with how great it looks. I know one of my Mac lover coworkers is, but I was unimpressed. However, it is not unattractive and sleak enough it is appropriate fashion wise in any situation. More so than any other smartphone I have ever seen, including the blackjack that I thought was fairly good looking. I have to admit, losing the qwerty keyboard on the unit to gain real-estate is a great appearance improver.

One thing that I can probably say about the iPhone is that it will force other companies to get their buts in gear and produce something that is more up to the task of competing with this jump forward in smart phones, or they truley are going to lose a big chunk of the market to Apple.

So how many of you are as disappointed as I am? I have added a post with a pole to the forums for all of you to weigh in on. Please post some replies with your thoughts and vote in the pole.
Apple to release iPhone! Why freaking tease me?!