Búbosvöcsök

CNBC is going to be here in a few minutes to interview Patrick about his iPhone, a month later, to see if he still likes it.

Dave Winer writes about his iPhone. You might be surprised by his review because he is pretty brutal about the iPhone.

Me?

I agree with Dave Winer. if you are a hard-core email or even cell phone user the iPhone will probably leave you wanting (I find it frustrating to dig through my thousands of contacts, for instance, but then I’m weird — most people don’t have thousands of people they need to have on their phone so they can call them). I’ve been talking with a bunch of people who switched from Blackberries to iPhones and most, while happy, do wish the iPhone had some better things for email users. One guy, though, told me he’ll never go back to Blackberry, no matter how good the keyboard is. Why? HTML email. He loves getting his newsletters in their full glory.

Me? I’m getting rid of my Nokia N95. I need a couple of weeks more income before I can afford to get an iPhone (believe it or not I don’t have an unlimited “gadget” budget). But the Nokia just continues to piss me off. I realized it the other day when Google Maps wouldn’t come up due to an out-of-memory error and I asked Patrick to hand me his iPhone.

Oh, and I counted the clicks to open up Google Maps on my Nokia N95: 11. How many on the iPhone? One.

I disagree with Dave Winer about the Web. I TOTALLY enjoy reading the Web much more on the iPhone than the Nokia. The Nokia does not thrill, the iPhone does. Am I a simpleton for liking a product that thrills (has nice user interactions?) Yes. Shoot me.

One other thing: I can’t use a device with a QWERTY keyboard. Why? Because I’m an addict. When I had a Blackberry I used it so often my hands started hurting. I lost that device in a cab in New Orleans and my hands stopped hurting. So, I don’t use my mobile device for answering email anymore. I can’t. That’s me.

One guy told me he missed his Blackberry because he couldn’t use the iPhone while he drives. That’s an addict’s behavior. Personally it’s GOOD that the iPhone can’t be used while you drive (although Google Maps are easier to use on the iPhone while driving than on the Nokia N95 because you can get to a map with one click on the iPhone, where the Nokia takes 11, or more).

Which brings us to reviewer bias. Every reviewer sees the world through their own eyes. I sure do and that’s why some of my readers get mad at me “will you shut up about Facebook and iPhone already?”

I’ve been talking to a LOT of normal people and notice that they are far more likely to really enjoy the iPhone. Except for one thing: the price. Most people have never used the Web on their cell phone. Most people have never listened to music on their cell phone. Most people have never used Google Maps on their cell phone. Most people have never answered an email on their cell phone.

It’s the “most people” that Dave Winer (and me) usually forget.

But when I talked with a Google executive he told me that they are seeing FAR HIGHER usage on the iPhone than any other device that Google’s apps and services are on.

Why does a pretty UI and thrilling interactions matter? Because it affords using it. That’s why the iPhone wins and the Nokia doesn’t. And, yes, I realize that I’ll get bagged on by all the Nokia fans who will remind me once more about the GPS, the better camera, the replaceable battery, yadda yadda yadda. You can save your evangelism for another day (I know Nokia is working on making its software much better, so you’ll probably soon get to come back here and tell me all about it then).

One last thing. Dave is right. The biggest hole that Apple has left for its competitors is a really really really lame software developer platform (IE, non-existent, iPhone developers can’t even get data from the accelerometers on the iPhone, which really is lame). Did I say “really” enough times to drive home the point?

Anyway, I’ll let you know when I get my iPhone. It’s going to be soon then. I’ll have to decide what to do with the N95. I’m thinking of giving it away in a contest or selling it and donating the fees from it to charity since it was given to me by PureMobile.

If you have an iPhone: what do you think?