Well, the suspense is finally over.
Now we know that the iPhone is really the iPhone, and that it'll bring a little bit of Star Trek into our lives come June of this year.
Just how much Star Trek can be appreciated by a peek back at the Clipper Padd from Star 
Trek the Next Generation, which was also a hypothetical multi-touch interface device set so many centuries into the future.
Talk about art imitating life imitating art.
All the while Apple is putting a Computer into a new class of device 
even while it takes "Computer" out of it's name (image via Engadget).
Very few have handled one outside of Apple since it's still in the advanced prototype stage.
In particular, these observations from David Pogue of the New York Times, who spent an hour with one, are the ones that made the biggest impression on me:
"the name iPhone may be doing Apple a disservice. This machine is so packed with possibilities that the cellphone may actually be the least interesting part..."
"You won’t complain about too many buttons on this phone; it comes very close to having none at all..."
"voice-mail messages appear in a list, like an e-mail in-box; you can listen to them in any order..."
"The optional, tiny Bluetooth wireless earpiece has its own little charging hole in the iPhone’s charging/synching dock — and it snaps in magnetically for convenience.."
"The only physical buttons, in fact, are volume up/down, ringer on/off (hurrah!), sleep/wake and, beneath the screen, a Home button..."
"But its Mac OS X-based software makes it not so much a smartphone as something out of “Minority Report...”
"...there’s no scroll wheel. Instead, you flick your finger on the glass to send the list scrolling freely, according to the speed of your flick. The scrolling spins slowly to a stop, as though by its own inertia. The effect is both spectacular and practical, because as the scrolling slows, you can see where you are before flicking again if necessary..."
"The real magic, however, awaits when you browse the Web. You get to see the entire Web page on the iPhone’s screen, although with tiny type. To enlarge it, you can double-tap any spot; then you drag your finger to scroll in any direction..."
"Alternatively, you can use a brand-new feature that Apple calls multi-touch: you slide your thumb and forefinger together (like pinching) or apart on the glass. As you do so, the Web page before you grows or shrinks in real time, as though it’s printed on a sheet of latex. It works with photos, too, and it’s wicked cool..."
So of course, like Jerry Yang and so many others, I can't wait to have one in my hands.
Even though I agree with Tom Evslin that Apple could have, likely should have done more to change the increasingly archaic industry "rules of the road":
"The telecommunications sector (or at least the mobile part of it) WOULD have been reinvented if Apple said that the WiFi connection on the phone could be used to make voice calls without going through the Cingular network. But they didn’t.
The telecommunications sector (or at least the mobile part of it) WOULD have been reinvented if Apple had announced a phone which is network agnostic and let the carriers rush to announce their support for it. But they didn’t."
But in the mean time, I'm wondering...
Will we see just Video iPod versions of the new multi-touch iPod sans the re-invented phone?
If so, when?
Would Steve release one BEFORE the iPhone in June?
After all, the iPhone, even with the higher 8GB memory configuration still only has the memory storage of a Nano. And that's a far cry from the 80 GB Video iPod available today.
And that one has a much smaller screen and the now already dated "scroll wheel", not to mention that it's far less suitable to view a video much less a movie.
And the iPhone, either at the $499 or $599 price for the 4GB or 8GB version, will still be available ONLY WITH a 2-year phone service contract from Cingular.
Not a very attractive proposition for the millions who just want to listen to a little bit of music or watch a teeny bit of video.
So the question is when will Apple update the video iPod?
Before or after June, 2007?
And will consumers still want a separate iPod and an iPhone this time next year?
Finally, how long will it be before this version of the debut iPhone seems as dated as this version of the original iPod from 2001?
Disclosure: I remain a long-time investor in Apple Inc.
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