Let's all calm down.  "iWeekend" is now officially over and, while the estimates of sales of the iPhone range from 500,000 to 700,000, the hype machine is basically spinning down and giving us time to take a deep breath.  So let's do that and take a serious look at this product without the hype.  I got one on Friday night and couldn't get it activated until Monday morning but have been playing with it for a day or so and have a lot of thoughts about it… most, but not all of them, good.  
Full disclaimer time here: I am a serious Apple fanatic (Mac user for 20+ years) and have owned and used more different cell phones in my lifetime than most people will ever see (personally owned more than 40, have used scores, maybe hundreds, more – see why HERE).

Given those caveats let's take a closer look at the product, the process and the pricing:

When we arrived at the Apple store on Friday night at about 8PM the lines had disappeared – we walked in, bought two phones and walked out within five minutes.  The Apple employees were all equipped with portable, wireless credit card processors allowing them to stand anywhere in the store and conduct the transaction.  Very efficient.  

Apple's fingerprints – metaphorically speaking – are all over this product.  The bag that the phone was put into is a work of art worthy of a museum store.  The box and guts of the box are typical of Apple's minimalist, yet highly effective, approach towards packaging.  Open the box and, like a jewel, the phone is the first thing you see – dig a little deeper and the cable, charger, pamphlet and other little goodies were just below it.  All in all, a wonderful buying experience worthy of the Apple name.

Activation, however, was a different story.  AT&T blew it in a big way on this one.  I won't go into all the gory details as there are plenty of stories all over the net about the frustrations many customers experienced, so I'll cut to the chase – it took three separate phone calls to AT&T's "activation assistance" department and a total of four hours on hold (both before the call being answered by a human and then afterwards while they tried to resolve the problem) before it actually was resolved. 

Finally, yesterday morning, after a two-hour hold (during which the music-on-hold was interrupted every 30 seconds reminding me that my call was very important) I was lucky enough to get someone who was smart, sympathetic and determined to get it fixed.  And he did – within 10 minutes of getting on the line.  Once the first phone was activated I waited a few minutes and attempted to activate our second phone using the standard iTunes process.  Long story short, the second phone was activated in under two minutes without even a hiccup.  It made me a true believer in the online activation process, which I blogged about HERE the other day.

At that point the phone was working and allowed me to set up the syncing process, during which I could designate which music, photos, contacts and calendars I wanted synced with the phone.  That setup took just a couple of minutes and then, the next thing I knew the phone was downloading all of the information from my Mac.  So far, smooth as the screen on a new iPhone… and that's smooth. 

Now I've got a working iPhone and I have to say that I really do like a lot of things about it.  But let's be clear about this – this gizmo isn't a phone… it's a handheld computer that happens to make phone calls.  Anyone who thinks that the cost of this device is expensive is making the wrong comparison; comparing the iPhone to a cell phone isn't an (no-pun-intended alert) apples-to-apples comparison.  Even a "smart" phone can't do anything near what the iPhone can do.  I honestly believe that this device needs to be viewed – and compared – as a handheld computer that could conceivably replace a laptop on short trips. 

Sure, I know that Blackberrys can do that to a certain extent, too, but believe me – and I've had three Blackberrys – there's no comparison in the functionality.  And Windows Mobile-based phones?  Please… excuse me while I gag in the background here.  Junk masquerading as technology.  Anyone who takes more than three minutes to really use both won't be able to help but agree.

You've probably already read about the gorgeous screen (it is even more stunning when you're looking at it than in ads), the fingertip control and the way-cool iPod and other features so I'm going to commit some heresy here and jump right into the bad and the ugly – you'll see the good in a heartbeat the first time you pick one up. 

• First and foremost, this thing needs true mail syncing.  If Apple is ever going to compete with Blackberry (yeah, yeah, I know this is supposed to be aimed at consumers, but you can bet that every Wall Street and Silly Valley exec lusts to be using his/her Blackberry as a lovely paperweight) mail that's sent from the iPhone needs to be synced to the mail application on your Mac.  Plus, a lot of the mail that I'm reading comes through in ridiculously tiny type – I'm still working with Apple to find out why but it sure is annoying.  Setting up the account to check and send mail was a breeze but this thing really needs industrial-strength mail capabilities or the corporate heavies will never carry it.  

• Next, the speed.  You've probably read that EDGE – AT&T's data network – isn't competitive with other carriers' high-speed offerings and that's true.  For regular email, widget updating, etc., it's just fine.  But for the true browsing experience you're going to feel the need, the need for speed.  Stand by – you can bet that 3G (the truly high-speed network) is on its way within the year.
  

Now, let's pick some nits:

• I'd like the screen to stay on when it's in the charging cradle unless I turn it off.  The screen has a great graphic and clock on it and I'd rather be looking at that than a black, blank slate sitting on my desk.  In fact, this device needs a different slate of settings for when it's running on battery or in the dock in much the same way that laptops have different settings for being powered by their A/C adaptor or battery.
• Maybe I'm the only one but I sure would like an FM tuner in here – I try to listen to a couple of shows regularly and, while they're available as podcasts, sometimes I'm not in the car and want to listen to them live.  How tough could it be to put an FM tuner in here with all the other gear?  
• The headphone jack is ridiculous – you need an adaptor to fit a standard plug in it and that's just downright annoying.  Every standard headset (other than the one that comes with the phone, which is, incidentally, terrific) won't fit.  Nor will car adaptors or other accessories.  This is just a nuisance and there's really no excuse for it in such an otherwise beautifully engineered product.  
• Let me rearrange what's on the main screen.  I don't like being forced to comply with what Apple thinks is a logical arrangement – I want to arrange the icons in the order I like them, just as I can on a computer's desktop.  How tough can that be to add?
• There's got to be a way to sync the notes on the phone back to the computer.  Not being able to sync them is just a dumb omission and I'm shocked that Apple would leave that out.  Even the oldest, most basic Palm device allowed you to do that.  
• The clock, the calendar and the weather widget should all be indicating real-time information, not a static icon.  It's a phone, it's communicating all the time with the cell sites and it's already getting the date and time updated regularly anyway – how tough would it be to have the icons reflect that information?

There's more, but hey, it's only been a day.  But am I disappointed?  Not in the least.  I'm somewhere between happy and mildly delirious.  I've got my complete address book with hundreds of entries, my calendar with thousands of entries both past and future, all of my podcasts, about 500 songs, every digital photo in my files (about 4500 of them), a seriously terrific phone, email coming and going, WiFi connectivity for high speed access in the house and cafes, a 2MP camera (although no video), a real browser – not some ersatz browser that reformats pages on the fly, YouTube access, an amazing implementation of Google Maps with real-time traffic updating and more all in a device just slightly larger than my MotoRAZR. 

Anyone using an iPhone for more than a couple of hours will return to their old cell phone with disdain.  It will seem (and is) primitive, clunky and underpowered.  The iPhone is sleek, has the power of a desktop computer, makes phone calls in ways that would astonish a cell phone user of just 10 years ago and costs about the same as the RAZR did when it first came to market. 

I've been in the wireless industry for almost thirty years and now I've seen the future… it's sitting on my desk.