Now that he’s enlightened himself I can take him a little more seriously. After all he does point out some legitimate discrepancies:

I did find it odd that the auto-sensing rotation worked for some apps but not others.

You’re right Jeff, it is odd. As an ex-Newton user where every single app worked regardless of screen orientation, I too find this to be odd. It’s a discrepancy that Apple really should fix.

...on the Touch you find yourself digging for the stylus and familiar Windows Mobile complexity once you get past the veneer. On the iPhone, by contrast, once you get past the beauty and style of the UI, you pretty much have nothing.

Sorry Jeff I have to take issue with you on this. Although I can understand where you’re coming from. As someone who once spent…what was it…the better part of a week compiling ROM images for his smart phone, I can see where having a device that doesn’t require such tinkering to be disconcerting. I attribute this to the digital equivalent of the Helsinki Syndrome.

Jeff, and others like him, are so used to needing to mess with the guts of the OS on their devices that when faced with a device that doesn’t need it they declare it inadequate.

Tell me Jeff, why do you feel the need for Windows complexity? What does such complexity give you apart from a reason to tinker for hours on end?

As well it should be, on a $600 Nano. This is an iPod where you’re paying over $100 per gigabyte. Not even the original iPod was that expensive for what you got.

Okay Jeff, you have yourself another straw man argument here. Would a $600 iPod Nano be outrageous? Sure. But it’s not an iPod Nano. An 8GB iPod Nano will run you $250. So that means that the Phone and Internet Communicator portions of the iPhone have approximately $350 in combined value. Split down the middle that’s $175 for the phone and $175 for the Internet Communicator.

The Nokia 770 fits the bill as an Internet Communicator, but it only has WIFI and it will set you back about $250. Even if you consider getting a basic phone from AT&T for free when you sign up, the iPod Nano and Nokia 770 together come to $500. Apple’s going for value here and I think they’ve found it. One device which is designed to take the place of three, and does the job with style and class.

When it comes to Safari Jeff’s comments pretty much mimic my own. Safari is gorgeous on the iPhone and provides an excellent experience. Text entry can be a pain if you’re using the iPhone for the first time. Yes there are compromises in the keyboard, but calling it counter intuitive? I have to ask Jeff, did you find the underscore without having to consult a technical guide? I bet you did. And so did I the very fist time I used one in an Apple store. There is no manual because you don’t need one, assuming of course that you have an attention span longer than a gnat.

Compare that to the keyboard on my Nokia. It not only has the normal shift, but also a function key. So three sets of characters can be created depending on the modifier key that’s depressed. Sounds easy enough right? However it’s the execution that sucks. Jeff, my large-fingered-friend, I have no doubt that you would also find the Nokia keyboard as inconveniencing. After using the iPhone I have to say I prefer the Apple way. Each key has just one character on it. there are no questions about which combinations of keys to press. If you don’t see your character, there’s a button for the number keyboard. Still don’t see it? There’s a button for the symbol keyboard.

Does that mean it “sucks?” Only if you are unable to “think different.”

The iPhone’s vaunted simplicity is only skin deep, in other words. Once you try to actually do anything with it, like type a username with an underscore, you have to jump through non-intuitive hoops to get there.

What hoops Jeff? So because Apple chose to make each key do one thing it’s become non-intuitive? I don’t think so. It’s an interface design choice. One that was borrowed from the Newton, and one that I personally think is right given the device and its purpose. Single purpose buttons are simplicity. If the buttons function can change, why not change the button too?

The only thing that took me a while to find, the WIFI Mac address of my iPhone so I could add it to my wireless network at home. But even that I found in under a minute. For those curious the iPhone didn’t find my home network because I don’t broadcast an open network, and I also allow only a known set of devices to connect to it.

The camera only takes pictures in 2MP size, and only sends them by email and only sends them resized to VGA. No way to override any of that, and no way to set the camera for presets like sport, burst, MMS, etc.

I’m still waiting for the link to the fashion photographer shooting magazine spreads with his cell phone. I’m sorry but presets like “sport, burst, MMS, etc.” are nothing more than gimmicks. They exist to make the feature list longer and therefore make the device appeal to people who only bother to compare the length of the list. It’s conceivable that future cell phone cameras will be so advanced that they will replace professional photographic gear. But not today.

Several people have pointed out that the iPhone is what Palm should have been working on instead of the Foleo,

And here’s my beef with Palm. They’re trying to be MS Windows, and in trying to be Windows they will lose out…to Windows.

But only because I know Palm would have succeeded where Apple has failed.

While I do think it’s still a little early to call the iPhone a fantastic success, but to say Apple has failed? Seriously Jeff, when was the last time Palm sold over half a million first generation devices in just three days? Scratch that, when was the first time? (Minus points if you try to pass off bulk purchases by corporate entities, especially telecoms.)

Everyone is entitle to their opinion and that includes Jeff. But I simply felt it necessary to provide a little balance to the anti-iPhone extremism. I’m going to hold off on any more iPhone articles for a while, no matter what Jeff says. I have one, and so far I like it. Only time will tell if it stands up.

Remember boys and girls; The truth is usually somewhere between the extremes.