iPhone Review. Good, Bad & Ugly

So..... Last Monday the iPhone was released. I happily watched the release from the liveblogs. but..... Steve seems to have taken a shortcut with the new phone. Here is my thoughts:

The Good

• 3G. Yep the fast fast fast, is good, good, good. I'm hopeful that AT&T will keep up the aggressive roll out of 3G in many more areas.
  
• Price. I like that the phone is subsidised. ATT will get their money back over the 2 years, and this will bring more customers into the iPhone world.
• Applications. So many people have said that apps are nice but web based apps are the way to go. I disagree 100%. I encounter so many areas that don't have wifi, and also many areas where cell phone coverage (and Edge & 3G) is very weak. On-phone apps run no matter what the coverage is like.
  
• Business support. For consumers this means little. For the long term forecast and life of the phone it is a MUST DO. I'm glad Apple started down the business road.
  
• Flush headset jack. Apple sometimes does listen to it's customers. Nuf' said.
• GPS. Wow! I really didn't think this would be on the phone. This is great. Having exact location information is very useful. Some say it's not necesary, but I think a whole big industry will spring up with this one addition. A few examples would be
  
• Geotaging photos.
• Keeping track of where you kids, friends, or spouse is located.
• real time traffic info based on users speeds.
• location based advertising
• calling AAA when your car breaks down, and telling them exactly where your at.
• theft recovery of 100% of the phones
• secure money transfers because PIN usage can be double checked against device location.
• guided city/museum tours displaying info based on real location.
• parking lot space location info.
• theam park maps inside the phone, with google style maps showing you which rides are currently under a 30 minute wait.... and where the nearest restrooms are located.
• coupons beamed to the phone only when entering or passing by a store.
  

The Bad

• Lack of Business Apps. So.... Steve..... this was to be a big rollout for business users, yet ya didn't add any intigrated business apps? Business people need a good note taking app, a robust ToDo app, a calender that is very flexible, a 5 star contact manager program & the ability to read and edit MS Office documents. I know, the app store might fill in the gaps... I have my doubts. Native apps from Apple will always run smoother than add-ons.
  
• Price. Apple dropped the price (via AT&T subsidy) but failed to keep high end products. There are users who need to basic level phone at a basement level price. There are also those people who would spend $500 on a phone (just look at the initial release of the phone). A more feature intensive phone coupled with cheaper phones would address this issue better.
  
• Memory. Music, photos, applications, data, and games. All this on 8 or 16Gigs is a tight fit. A larger 24Gig or 32Gig device is in order to solve storage problems. Again (back to my last point) there are users who would pay for the extra storage... and I'm one of them.
• Camera. I could rant that 2Mpixel cameras were all the rage 10 years ago, but why bother. I really don't think Apple feels this is a big issue for consumers. I personally carry a nice digital camera, but having a decent camera on the phone would be great for those times I don't have (or forgot) my real camera.
  

The Ugly

• Video. The iPhone can't call itself a great multi media device when basic video is not supported through the camera.
  
• Flash support. Again, Apple can't say this is a true internet device when Flash is not supported. This must be added into the phone!
  
• AT&T. Dang... I know we are stuck with em for some time. I still hate them for trashing the US constitution with the Bush administration. Full time wiretapping?!?!? I'm amazed more people don't care about this issue.
  
• No Data Storage. I really wish the iPhone could store data on it just as the iPods do. It would be nice to treat the phone like a USB drive and transfer files with it. Sigh. I don't think Steve will do this for many years.

So all in all the iPhone is a nice device in a very small form package. Apple did add some nice features that will help push the phone along, but I don't think they addressed them fully. But as the fan-boys will say.... that will all be in iPhone 3.0