Re: iphone or not?
My wife now has an iPhone so I can provide (almost) first hand experience.
First, from an overall impressions standpoint, its just gorgious. Very intuitive user interface. A lot of very nifty features that are quite practical too.
On the downside, biggest downside, weak phone reception. Really weak. My Blackberry is no superpower phone, but in front of iPhone it always shows more bars and better reception. If you are in areas with terrific cellphone signal, then this won't be an issue.
Second, the onscreen keypad is pretty kewl, but even for me (not very thick fingers) its an acquired taste. I was mistyping quite a lot till I figured out how to. Using browser you can use landscape mode where keys are a bit more spaced, but portrait mode really pushes it. My suggestion, before buying it, go to an Apple store and try typing on the screen for a bit to get the idea. Not a deal breaker, once you figure it out.
After buying the phone, we did invest in a skin. Bought it online. Better variety and instead of paying $29 in Apple store or a mall khokha, we paid $6 plus shipping (total $11) buying online and she got the color of her choice. Phone does not get scratches, but the screen can get smudgy and you can just clean it with a cloth (shirt corner or dopatta ka pallu, whichever works for you :)).
Apple's execution of Clock, Weather, Stock market and maps is just first rate. Very easy and intuitive. iPod integration is very neat as my wife uses this feature very regularly when she takes the phone to the gym. She syncs it with Outlook in our home PC. Out of habit, she does charge it every night and battery life has never been a problem, even with extensive iPod use (rated battery time for iPod use is 15 hours).