Look Before You Leap on July 11th
This is the iPhone that all the late adopters have been waiting for. It promised to address the deficiencies of the first generation iPhone, but does it really? Here are some reasons why not:

		1. Too Expensive to Own
		Apple and AT&T may have shaved a couple of hundred dollars off the price but they will more than make up for it in monthly fees. If you take into account the regular monthly fee, the data fee, the text message fee which used to be free, and the $99 annual mobileme fee you could end up spending over $1,000 a year to own an iPhone, that’s the price of a 42" LG LCD TV.

		2. Can’t Use the GPS like a GPS
		Forget about getting turn-by-turn voice directions in your car from the new iPhone 3G. The iPhone SDK makes it pretty clear it’s not allowed, “Applications may not be designed or marketed for real time guidance.” Yes it will superimpose your position on a Google map, or show you the closest pizzeria but what about getting real-time route guidance? There’s a rumor that TomTom may be developing a guidance application but you have to wonder how they’ll get it past the Apple police.  But until that happens, it might be worth investing in a Magellan GPS for your car.

		3. Can’t Tether the iPhone to Your Laptop
		Want to save $60 per month for a 3G card for your laptop and use the iPhone instead? Not going to happen - not allowed. Although there are plenty of phones, including AT&T’s Tilt, that will allow you to use your 3G phone as a wireless router for your laptop, the iPhone won’t be one of them so you can add the cost of a 3G card for your laptop at $720 a year to your total cost of ownership.

		4. Still No Cut and Paste
		Cut and Paste has been around on Apple computers since the earliest Mac Plus computers. What’s the big problem with implementing it on iPhones? Why is cut and paste so important? Suppose you’re browsing a web site and want to capture some text or a URL, or someone sent you an email and you want to grab some text from it and send to someone else. Not possible on an iPhone. Speaking of email, where’s the spell checker? Predictive typing is fine but spell checkers are everywhere else but here.

		5. Wimpy 2 MP Camera
		In the world of 5 MP Smartphones and 10 MP point and shoot cameras why is the iPhone still stuck with a measly 2 MP? That’s so 2003. While we’re at it how come we can’t record video, afraid the non-existent SD card might fill up? The iPhone should be able to stream video by now and fill in for our camcorders.

		6. No Stereo Bluetooth
		We thought the iPhone was supposed to be part iPod. At least they fixed the recessed headphone jack flaw (and called it a new feature) but the A2DP stereo Bluetooth standard has been around for a while and is missing from the iPhone.  Without Bluetooth the car amplifier upgrade we installed in our car to stream music from the iPhone is suddenly useless.

		7. The List Goes On
		Still no Flash player for rich media content (what grudge does Steve Jobs hold against Adobe). Still can’t send pictures in MMS messages, still no native voice dialing, no mobile TV, no replaceable battery, no flash memory card, and on and on.

See You July 11th

Okay, now that I got that off my chest, I feel better and what the heck, so it's not perfect but it's still the coolest smartphone out there and I still want one. I look forward to seeing you on the line outside the Palo Alto Apple store on July 11th. Enjoy your new iPhone.

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