Ok, so Brian has to be contrarian. My, what a surprise. I'll spare you the point-counterpoint-countercounterpoint debate, but just allow this one item:

"As for the video iPod suggestion, I’m gonna have to suggest backing the
truck up. This is not being positioned as a video playback device. At
all."

Might I suggest you check out apple.com/iphone, click the first iPod icon there so you can see the iPod features of the iPhone. What's that? The iPhone playing an episode of The Office? Yeah, I guess Apple isn't trying to position it as a video playback device. At all.

Look, I don't need to defend my position, and I don't need you to argue it. It's my opinion. I personally didn't read any reviews of the iPhone. I based all my opinions strictly on what Apple had to say on their website. So, that's that. My opinion, take it or leave it.

Oh, and one final thing: my expectations are mine, so really, how can they be misguided? That's like saying I shouldn't like tofu, because you don't. But I still do.

EDIT:
I did some more reading today, so I don't appear to be so knee-jerk in my dislike of the iPhone. Realistically, the only innovative thing that I do like about the iPhone is the gestural interface. I don't necessarily like it for a phone, but I like that it is making it's way into consumer devices. But it seems that there are more than a few people who have slightly negative comments about the iPhone. Read and decide for yourself if anything of these drawbacks mean something to you.

So I saw in the news today that Jobs did his usual song and dance and flitted about with this iPhone. I'm sure all the Apple fanboys will be right up his crack as usual, and all the iPod afficianados will be drooling to get their hands on an iPhone... but seriously. Let's think about this shall we?

Other than the interesting user interface, what is of real substance here? A conflux of devices that brings together a web browser, a widget based operating system (they are calling it OS X, but really, what is under the hood there?), a phone, an iPod Video and a touchscreen. Well, minus the iPod Video, it sounds an awful lot like a Treo or a Blackberry.

Say you want a revolution? If you read all the hype on Apple's iPhone website, you'd think that the rest of us knuckledraggers are running around with Motorola StarTACs or bag phones! It's all so revolutionary!! I watched the Quicktime movies that demonstrate the software on the yet-to-be-FCC-approved iPhone. Yeah, wouldn't that be a hoot if the FCC didn't approve the iPhone? Most of what you see on there is stuff that's already in phones today. You have your email apps, web browsers, SMS, music players, photo viewers, etc etc. Perhaps the screen might be nicer on the iPhone - I can't really tell just yet. But I saw only one real innovation, and honestly, I could live without it. The accelerometer. Useful in laptops for parking your hard drive heads upon taking a tumble. But do I really need my web pages to rotate?

Nah. I don't. And I don't need to be able to pick my tunes based on cover art (who really remembers cover art anyway? Judge any books by their covers today?). Honestly, I would've rather seen more standards innovation here. Give me a method to display a web page without all the crap on it. One of the great things about simple WAP browsers is that their simplicity breeds KISS'd design (you know: Keep It Simple, Stupid). I navigate to a news page, and I get headlines and content. No adverts or popups or flashy reminders of how great your HD newscast is, or various viral videos of the latest despot hanging or whatever. Perhaps I'm just being stodgy, but I guess what I'm getting to is that I don't see a lot of revolution in the iPhone. Sure, Apple's UI group went nuts and you can press an icon and "flip" the CD cover to see the list of songs on the back. Wow, that's great guys.

How about instead you give me a voice controlled phone where I don't have to finger it like a, uh, almost-empty jar of peanut butter (whew) to get to the good stuff? How about instead of the same old meme for finding music you give me a voice controlled player where I can say, "play all the live tracks from Led Zeppelin" or "shuffle my reggae tunes" - and you just do it. Or perhaps instead of presenting the TV guide, you let me tell you to "play last week's episode of The Office". Maybe instead of a widget for weather, you use the cell phone part of the phone to figure out where I am and display the weather.

Better yet - instead of hobbling your iPhone with 4-8GB of storage (a video iPod with 8GB? C'mon! That's like 4 movies and 2 albums!), why not have just a phone. That's the boat I'm sailing on at the moment. Just a phone. I have a Treo. I have an iPod. I have a Blackberry. I don't want a iBerryo or a TrePoddy, or a Blackpodeo. Now technically I wouldn't normally have a Blackberry AND a Treo, but the Treo is mine and the Blackberry belongs to work, and it's just for email.

So I guess I'm saying all of this to say that I will definitely not be looking to acquire an iPhone. In fact, I'm probably going to slim down my nerd belt accessories. Instead of having several gadgets each of which does several functions moderately well, I'll have several gadgets each of which does one function very well. Call it best of breed or whatever. I have a video/audio player, and while it's the top of the heap in marketshare, it's certainly limiting what I can put it on. I have a phone that's the top of the heap for business, but it's big and duplicating a lot of functions. I have a wireless office device that's the top of the heap for business, but it cannot be enabled for phone usage. So I get a small phone that has what I need: phone, sync, SMS and perhaps a camera. I keep the Blackberry. For now I'll keep my iPod, but when that goes - I'm saying good bye to Apple and the iTunes monopoly. I've about had it with DRM, so I think I'll go back to buying good ol' CDs.