Re: how many of you will
Pretty cool review on the iPod, I’m just quoting the BAD 
"Now for the bad:
The phone and the network: I’ve long labored under miserable AT&T mobile service using lesser phones; now I can get unsatisfactory mobile service on my iPhone! Throughout San Francisco, AT&T signal strength varies wildly from place to place and from second to second. The first call I made on the iPhone dropped out briefly – I was ordering take-out and had to repeat my order.
But you’ve got no choice. Apple has chosen AT&T as the iPhone’s exclusive network provider. This week Working Assets, the phone company whose mission is to do well by doing good, put out a petition urging Steve Jobs to “unlock” the iPhone – that is, to let people use it on any provider they choose. People ought to have the right to choose whatever device they’d like to use on whatever network, Working Assets argues. And if you’re going to get stuck with a network, AT&T would likely come up last in your list. Here’s a company that is currently fighting network neutrality, helping the NSA spy on Americans, and developing a way for Hollywood to police the Internet. As Cory Doctorow asks, “Honestly, is there anyone who believes that having a captive audience of two-year-locked iPhone customers will incentivize AT&T to behave better?”
Screen smudges: I’ve only been using the phone for a day, so I can’t say yet if the screen scratches easily. What I can tell you is that it collects more prints than an O.J. Simpson crime scene. Face oils, too, are menace. Fortunately the box includes an elegant logo-embossed wipe-up cloth – carry it along if you want to avoid a grody iphone.
What’s missing: Oh, so much. 3G networking is the big omission, but as you fiddle around with your new phone, you begin to notice many other features Apple seems to have forgotten about. The iPhone doesn’t let you copy or paste text, and, worse, it doesn’t let you select any text – which makes moving or deleting a long line quite difficult. The phone’s e-mail program does not include a search feature, so you’ve got to scroll through dozens of messages to find what you’re looking for. The contacts and calendar applications are also missing a search – but this didn’t bother me much because the iPhone failed to sync up with my computer’s names and dates. That’s because on a PC, the phone can only get contact and calendar info from Outlook, and not from Gmail or Google Calendar or any of the world’s other information management applications. (The iPhone can also only import Web bookmarks from Internet Explorer or Safari – not from Firefox.) There’s no instant messaging application either, there are no games, and you can’t add in any ringtones.
I’m sure to get deluged by Mac fans telling me this is all temporary. Apple is certain to offer software upgrades to fix or add most of what’s wrong with this first version of the iPhone, they’ll tell me. And they’re right. But that I have to depend on Apple – rather than on a wide world of software developers – to fix what’s wrong doesn’t entirely comfort me.
You need to use this phone for just a couple of minutes to realize that what you have in your hand is not at all a phone – it truly is a brand-new kind of machine, a fully functional general-purpose computer in your pocket. But because Apple has (so far) prohibited third-party development on the phone, it’s a stunted general-purpose computer, one that depends on a single, specific company for its every innovation. I would like to see an iPhone version of Google Gears, the new app that stores Internet content offline, so that, while I’m connected to Wi-Fi, my phone could slurp up hundreds of blog posts for me to read when I’m on a plane. But I can’t do that unless Apple allows it. I would like to see an iPhone version of Skype, and Quicken, and Pandora, and of course Firefox – my kingdom for an iPhone Firefox and its bazillion plug-ins!
But the iPhone is locked down. And I can’t help wondering if it will ever match its potential.
And one more thing: It’s $600! I’m not used to treating my cellphone with much respect. I throw it in my bag, I flash it around in public, I don’t think twice about slipping it in the security tray when I’m going through the airport. The iPhone alters that calculus of risk. When the thing in your pocket is worth half a month’s rent, you feel yourself constantly on alert. Every time I pick it up, I clutch it tight. The iPhone looks like it could survive a fall, but let someone else try first. "
