There's an ever-increasing buzz around the iPhone - and with good reason.  Having used or owned more than 50 different handheld cell phones in my life I can tell you that the iPhone is unequivocally the best one by a mile. That said, there are some things that even this product could stand to do a lot better.  Apple has already released their software development kit (SDK) that provides the tools for people to write applications that address some of the things that it doesn't do very well.  I'm hoping that Steve Jobs has been listening to the complaints and reading some of the blogs that ponder these issues.  And I hope that he, and the developers that he's now cut loose through the SDK intro, address some of my pet peeves, which are:

1. Voice tags for dialing numbers: Absolutely essential and a glaring error on Apple's part. This is both a convenience and safety feature and any cell phone worth it's weight in salt should have it.

2. A microrecorder for quick notes. Even the cheapest phones have one of these handy; just press a button (usually on the side of the phone, a la the RAZR) and record a quick memo. I used mine on my other phones frequently and miss it on the iPhone.

3. Different behaviors in the dock. When my phone is docked I want it to behave differently than when it's not. For example, I'd like the display to stay on all the time - I'm not saving battery when it's docked and I like having various sites, photos, weather reports, etc., open. Why not allow me to determine how the phone behaves when it's docked instead of arbitrarily forcing the phone to work the same way with or without connected power.

4. Ability to forward voicemail messages. The standard AT&T/Cingular voicemail allows you to forward a voicemail to another AT&T user - why can't I do this on my iPhone? I've even tried calling into the voicemail system from another phone and entering the codes manually and it still doesn't work. Why did AT&T cripple this feature? I found it very helpful on other devices.

5. Real-time updates of weather, clock and stock widget displays. If the widgets are already showing on the screen why not have them show accurate information instead of the static displays? I'm pretty tired of seeing "73 and sunny" on my widget display when it's 42 and raining. (This was accomplished in one of the last updates for the calendar icon, which makes it all the more irritating that other "live" information widgets don't similarly update.)

6. Notes that sync. Are you kidding? These notes don't sync?? The cheapest Palm and every other device I've ever used syncs notes back-and-forth from the computer to the device. The fact that the iPhone doesn't is a gross oversight and needs to be rectified - fast.

7. A separate contacts widget. Would someone please tell me why I have to open my phone function to find someone's contact information? Give me a widget, please, to access - and _search_ for a particular contact instead of making me scroll through the list (or even tapping the letter on the side, which is helpful, but still isn't nearly as good as the "Find" box on the Mac's Address Book).

8. The ability to delete individual "Missed Calls." I can't believe this one hasn't been fixed yet. Right now it's an all-or-nothing process where you are forced to delete every single recent call if you want to delete any of them. Why not make it possible to delete them individually, the way you can with emails?

9. Mass deletion of emails. Please give me a function that allows me to switch into delete mode and then check as many emails as I want to be deleted before hitting the delete button. Having to delete emails individually is just downright ridiculous.

10. WiFi access. For goodness sake, give me a way to log into a WiFi network that normally requires a web login (e.g., T-Mobile or A&T hot spots, etc.). This is an even more egregious error considering that the network (EDGE) doesn't provide the kind of speed that makes browsing, downloading and other net-centric activities as smooth as the rest of the iPhone's functionality.

As I say, I've used them all and the iPhone stomps every other platform by a country mile.  But even this device has a long way to go.  I'm hopeful that with the introduction of the software development kit and, hopefully, the long-awaited "3G" version (faster speeds for applications that access the Internet) these problems will be addressed,

One really cool thing that I should mention here about the iPhone is, in fact, it's ability to be upgraded via sofware.  Other devices either make it so difficult to do, or impossible to upgrade, giving the iPhone a huge leg up in the race to become everyone's favorite wireless device.