The iPhone, Top 10 Lists, Reality

First, enjoy this picture of the iPhone. I like the shuffle version myself. I don't know if there is anything to the Nano or Shuffle but it's a cool picture I found.

The iPhone, like Steve Jobs has advertised, is revolutionary. I could easily come up with my top 10 reasons for buying it. And, as Dan Ray has done, I could easily come up with my top 10 reasons for not buying it.

THEN THERE IS REALITY. On June 29th there are going to be millions of people who drive to the AT&T or Apple, Inc. corporately owned store nearest to them and pick up their first iPhone. Me, well, I’ll be working. When I do finally get off work, it will be too late to make it to the nearest location selling the iPhone. The next day, I’ll get up and go to work; again, before anyone selling the iPhone even thinks about getting out of bed. And again, I’ll get off work after all those sellers close their doors and go home. This will go on for 4 days. On the 5th day, all the stores will be out of stock.

THEN THERE IS MORE REALITY. My wife will look at me and say, “Thank you. Thank you for allowing us to live another month in our house that is too expensive, with our child who is still dependent, near our friends who would be too jealous, around our community that would think we’re quite precocious. Thanks for not spending the money we don’t have on another cell phone and iPod we don’t need.”

The real facts in this matter are simple. This is truly a revolutionary phone. I would love to have all the features of this phone for myself. It is not; however, the greatest it could be. I was actually at AT&T yesterday, helping my dad find a new phone. My dad got a phone with 3G, AT&T’s fastest wireless network. When I saw the 3G symbol I remembered back to Steve Jobs’ demonstration of the iPhone and how slowly the “full web page” of information loaded. I remember thinking to myself at that time, “Why did they not use 3G technology?”

Another point I agree with Dan on is the fact that Google Maps will be on the phone but GPS won’t. The missed the opportunity to link a navigation system to the greatest maps program around.

So, here is my “Top 10 List”:

Top 10 Reasons to Buy/Not Buy the iPhone (Odds are Pro, Evens are Cons)

10. Memory Size
09. Memory Size
08. Battery Life
07. Video iPod
06. Not 3G
05. Full Internet
04. No GPS
03. Google Maps
02. Not all the way where it could be
01. The way phones should be

Bonus reason: Apple, Inc. and Steve Jobs really do a great job with their products. Lately, I’ve learned so much about Apple’s ability to get rid of a lot of the problems that Windows driven PCs have. Errors, incompatibility problems, crashing, ease of use, syncability, etc. are all things that Apple has done a great job of limiting.

Here is a Rabbit Trail:
I think that Bill Gates and Steve Jobs both are missing the mark on where computers should go in the future. They were both unable to adequately answer the questions of where they saw computers in 5 years, at the D5 conference. The iPhone is a step in the right direction, but it’s just a fancy phone. The next revolutionary product should be the personal computer you take everywhere. It should be the size of the iPhone, have memory in the terabytes range, have the ability to sync with anything (monitors, keyboards, mouse, TV, networks, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, cellular, satellite, etc.), and simply be your only computer.

Imagine if you could take your cell phone to work, in your pocket, sit down at your desk with a full screen and keyboard, and connect to everything digital that is yours. That is what the next gen iPhone should and could be. That’s the one I want.

Final Thoughts
The iPhone is going to be great. I will enjoy checking out Ted’s. I won’t be buying one myself unless I win the lottery, sell my house, make more money, or the next gen iPhone comes out with everything I mentioned above.

Anyway,
Check out Dan’s original post here.
Check out Ted’s rebuttal here.