[MDA III, XDA III, PDA2k, 9090 Software Upgrading] Brazilian Joe:
I have never had apple stuff, but I watch apple closely. And I must admit, they build good stuff.

It's easier to shrug off the iPhone, especially if you don't have the money to buy it ;)

cutting through the grituitous bashing, as well as the hype, I have seen good and bad things.

GOOD:

No doubt it has a hardware platform powerful enough to perform at least as good as our BAs, and probably better. Yeah, it could have 3G, but it would add too much to the cost of the machine.

INTERFACE. Don't spit this 'I can do the same with 15 taps on my screen' style of crap. The machine has MULTITOUCH. That opens a whole window of possibilities for interactivity. like the demoed zoom, where you hold two fingers together and slide them apart on the screen to zoom in a map.

It's not like our touchscreens which can only detect a single coordinate on screen.

Not to mention all that eye-candy OS X is famous for. OK, you may scoff on eye candy, but used wisely (and apple knows how to do it), you can have visual clues of what's happening and this actually improves usability. Otherwise just pick up your Nokia 1110 with its black-and-white matrix and shut up.

They have no legacy to keep compatible, so they can really innovate. And I believe they are really innovating on this area.

Another nice touch is the orientation sensor which automatically changes from portrait to landscape when you rotate the machine. no buttons.

THE MIXED:

Apple's choice of software model. It will have a final say on what's available for the machine and what's not. I bet the apps will be available only through iTunes. It's good in the sense that they can ensure that software complies to a certain standard, which means good quality.

It's also probably a bane for the warez crowd, because pirating software will be much more difficult, if not impossible.

It will probably be bad for the hobbyst crowd, which would like to code for fun for their devices, and probably won't be allowed to. Unless Apple releases some open IDE a la Carbide, but since they are already closing up the door on software availability, this possibility is remote.

I think it's more bad than good, but at least we can hope this will be a death sentence for software developemnt for this platform, and that this will actually result in more security. Not that we have many actual threats out there, but smartphones have the potential to be hacked into, become zombies for spam botnets etc. etc. When the spammers/crackers start to tap on this, we might start to see Windows Mobile get into a nightmare...

THE BAD:

It lacks 3G, it does not have direct iTunes access (you have to cradle it to sync and add stuff);

It has no SD card slot. Now THAT's a ****up, it has a screen big enough to play videos, but not enough space to carry them.

No removable battery? WHAT did they have in mind? OK, I don't usually swap batteries around, but I tend to buy extended batteries (my BA has one). I only this machine has GOOD battery life, this might not bite as much.

It would be good to have a GPS throwed in too... hey, let me dream! :)

Cingular only... Hmm, I believe this won't last long. Other companies have launched branded products, but eventually they open up for the market after some time. I believe there have been t-mobile onlys before, after some time they will allow everyone to buy it. Remember, it's all about PROFIT. Apple will not close their market that much. If they can sell more, they will. They are probably working first with the operator which was easier to work with, they gave more of how apple wanted to control the device and the network. And they will probably use this to scrub on other operator and say 'Ok, if you don't do it the way I like it, I won't do you the favor of selling my devices to you' (Yeah, Apple is a bit like a diva). They will try to use the Cingular-only argument to try to drive the operator into submission. It's a reversal of roles, where usually the operators dictate what they want and don't want on their devices. And maybe they can pull it off.

IT's EXPENSIVE. Apple/Cingular is really 'stretching the thong' on this one. Either Cingular is not subsidizing AT ALL (have you thought of this possibility?), or the machine is really expensive.

I don't think the BOM justifies anywhere close to this price tag. The screen is the same size of a LifeDrive, which is not anywhere near the cost of this machine. 4-8 GB flash? look at the iPod nano's price tags. ARM CPU + radios, there are plenty out there. motion/orientation sensor? Hmm, look at the Wii controls, I think I have read something about them, those things are not expensive nowadays. The only exotic stuff is the multi-touch sensor, and those things exist for quite some time, they are just not popular. and lacking stuff like 3G radio, SD slot and... a removable battery cover (sigh) helps driving down the cost.

The profit margin is fat here! yeah, there is all this 'pay for R&D blah blah', but they are going to make a few good bucks.

BOTTOM LINE:

It's the first generation. I will wait and see. 1 year from now the price tag will be sane, I will probably be able to buy an unlocked one, and even better if I can find a 2nd generation device which has GPS and a SD card slot.