iDon't need an iPhone

Yet another "cute" iPhone blog title. Sorry for that.
I'm going to chime in with MHO on the iPhone. Because that's what blogs are for, of course.
I was amused some friends waited in line for it on the first day. For 12 hours. Only to get just a 3 hour jump in use. Yes, on the people who didn't wait in line but just walked in before store closing and picked one up. Same price, no special deal. The line thing would have been worth it (I suppose) if there had been the kind of distribution problems that seem to always beset the console gaming industry. I guess Apple is just better at volume production than Nintendo? Or distribution? Or the boxes were smaller so they could fit more on the trucks?

But I digress.

I checked out the iPhone, in-person, the First Day (well, ,+1, the First Full Day). I hefted and touched and web-surfed with a co-worker's, and then again, and perused other features, later at the iStore. It is certainly an impressive piece of kit, but it would have to be more open than it is to really be a PDA (or laptop replacement). Which it isn't being touted as--except that it could be...almost.

Or it would need to be in the price range of my $100ish RAZR 3X. For the price, it really just doesn't do enough, as surprising as that sounds. Rather enough of what I would want, or enough more than I already have. The $300 delta is too much a premium to be able to find my playlists easier or zoom in on pictures. 802.11 and web browsing is interesting, but maybe only painless enough (repeated café logins with the virtual keyboard? no thanks!) when city-wide wifi is finally done. If I'm at home I'll use my laptop for real surfing, and if I'm at work...sorry! Have to log into the VPN and I'm just not of the Crackberry generation. Using the stylus with my Handspring was painful enough to tap through the keyboard (hey, what happened to the Newton's handwriting recongition software? Slap that onto the iPhone and now you're getting closer!). I don't "text", and I barely talk enough on the cell to really have to carry one around. I let my full-sized qwerty do my talking any my full-size Firefox do my browsing, thank you.

That's not to say I can't imagine an iPhone or some other multifunction device that I would want to have. Merely the presence of OS/X behind the iPhone is soooo tantalizing. But there needs to be more convergence. To review:

Home convergence = big screen + video storage + DVR + game + 2-way (windowed web browsing) + one remote :^)

Portable convergence = cell phone + music player + GPS + eBook reader + 2-way + really, really good voice recognition or some kinda better keyboarding for my finger size.

The thing that gives me hope this convergence will happen and the fruit on this branch of the technology tree will ripen is that almost everything on the wishlist for laptops 15 years ago you can now get for well less than $1000. Maybe not the 12h battery, but almost. So I use my desk computer for the bigger screens (2 of 'em), but I really, really could use my laptop for everything, work & play. So I expect to say the same thing about my future laptop and some future iPophoVidder.

But not yet.
Unless...it were about $100. Just wait until AT&T gets their rebate fingers on this in a handful of months from now....

The Far(ther) Flung Future
What would be really cool is just a "mesh" of personal products. Your bluetooth earbud(s) talk to your phone when it is in range, and your laptop's or desktop's or home media center's music/video inventory when you're near those things (or they stream through your phone, I don't care how it works!). Your phone doesn't have to come out of your pocket unless you want to look at the screen to know where you are, or to use it as a remote for your laptop (mouse/pointer) or to push/get media content from some other device in your mesh. You could ask for your phone screen to pick up whatever video media content you're streaming and keep it going as you walk to the fridge, but IMHO, that's what a "pause" button is for.

Digression: When I was younger I didn't want to put down my paperback for anything, but I rarely get that deeply engaged anymore. A pause button for video works fine for me.

And, finally, big screens are sooo good now (really, 1080p I didn't have on my desktop workstation monitor 10 years ago!) you can really read text (appropriately driven). So an eBook interface would be cool, there, too. I may not read Harry Potter in the living room with the family ("Dad! Go Back! I wasn't done with that page yet!"), but I can see reading in bed getting a whole lot more comfortable. I could use my iPhone to advance the pages or select chapters, or even serve the book's display to my bedroom LCD display's 802.11 or Bluetooth receiver.

Now we're talking.

As long as I don't get interrupted by a phone call.