OK, I'll bite. Is there a blogger out there that hasn't written about the lastest iGadget?

My initial reaction was Wow! The UI looks really cool, and I love the idea of a totally soft UI for a device (any device), so that new paradigms of user interaction become a real possibility.

But then reality set in.

1. Price. This thing costs more than a PS/3, and that's for a phone which usually has a much shorter life expectancy than a console. Just who is going to stump up so much for what is only really a status symbol?
2. Battery. I've not seen the Apple announcement that they have a radical improvement in battery technology in the works. That means this baby has to run on the same energy store as every other device of the same size. Now that fancy UI starts to look very power intensive. Remember, every CPU instruction consumes power. Every lighted pixel. Every moment of backlight. Every radio emmission. Every moment listening for a radio signal (or a voice command). The quoted battery life doesn't seem that good, and when was the last time you saw a retail device deliver on the battery life that the marketing guys promised??? So I expect this thing to go from office dock, to car dock, to home dock.
3. Fixed battery. So if it dies (as it will) you can't replace it without a lot of hassle. Modern Lithium Ion batteries are usually good for about 500 to 1000 complete power cycles.
4. Connectivity. No 3G means very slow service. I currently have 3G on my tablet (Swisscom Unlimited). However, the real concern is what it can connect to. If the email application only works with carrier email and voicemail, its useless for business. That means I wont carry it because I'm not going to carry two phones (or split my single contacts list) for anyone. I have all my numbers (about 1,500 of them) in Outlook/Exchange for my SmartPhone, and thats not going to change.
5. OS/X. I think they are being disingenuous implying that this things runs OS/X. I bet it is about as true as saying that the Xbox runs Windows 2000. Some kernel and a few APIs maybe, but the same OS it ain't.
6. Competition. This device is up against some stiff competition. As a converged device it is already in a niche, because many people (like me) will not feel the desire to leave a tablet or laptop at home and rely solely on a phone. And if I did feel such, I would then want the phone to run my business apps. A small tablet (mine is an HP TC1100) with a 3G card, along with a conventional Smartphone with my Outlook contacts, allows a much richer set of use cases than this converged device.
7. Heritage. Apple has not had a good track record with PDAs. I loved the Apple Newton (still have a 120 somewhere) and it had a lot of good ideas. But it died due to lack of Outlook sync while the Palm Pilot cleaned up the market despite having an inferior design. Hell, the Newton wouldnt even sync with Apple's own (Claris) desktop PIM. Office politics meant that Jobs hated the Newton project, so he probably wont want to bring in any of the goodness that it did have.

Unlike the iPod, the iPhone is trying to swim in an ocean already full of sharks. Not just phone makers but carriers, middleware vendors, and big fish like Nokia.

It looks really cool. It will be very well marketed. But I wont be spending my own money on one. Sorry.

Can't help thinking that those who argue that immigrants are taking jobs are missing the points. What this tells me is that the jobs are there to be had, and the long-term unemployed (those who are physically able to work at least) can't make the excuse that there are no jobs out there. Immigrants who are willing to work hard, and to pay their taxes and pension contributions, should be welcomed with open arms.

I would much rather every country had a full employment policy like Switzerland. "Can work, wont work" is not acceptable in any system of morality.

Link to BBC NEWS | Europe | Romanians put trust in hard work