[Touch HD General] eaglesteve:
My dear friend,

It's good that at least you said in your essay that "Will I try a more nuanced approach and bring some objectivity to the table? Hell no, I can't stand the damn thing!"

Let me give you just a very short response to each of your points:

"1. No Multitasking?"

This is only true for non-jailbroken phone. Once jailbroken, you could use Backgrounder to do a fantastic job in multitasking. Once done, task switching is so well designed and easy to effect.

"2. The Camera"

High Megapixel is nice, only if it takes not take ages to save. Just look at any HTC devices's terrible camera and you know it is true. Even a 3.2MP camera on my Athena is too slow. I honestly find the iPhone camera much more useable, and capable of giving decent result under more varied lighting condition than say the HD. I had posted some comparative pictures on this forum before.

Imagine trying to capture your child about to score that goal in soccer on Saturday match! You're much more likely to have a good picture with iPhone's camera than say the HD.

"3. No Radio Receiver"

Yes, I think it's nice if Apple did not disable the radio. The receiver is in the iPhone, just not activated. Rumours is that they will activate it in firmware 3.0.

"4. Limited Bluetooh Support"

True for non-jailbroken phone. Not true if you jailbreak it or if for the upcoming 3.0 phone.

"5. No MMS"

True for non-jailbroken phone. Not true if you jailbreak it or if for the upcoming 3.0 phone.

"6. The On-screen Keyboard."

Therefore HD, Touch Diamond and all phones without hardware keyboard also sucks according to your logic?

"7. The Contract - you can't get it unlocked"

LOL, just unlock the phone mate. This is the case for every phone.

"8. No Customization or Tweaking

I find the lack of options and possibilities to tweak the iPhone into my very own confining, to say the least. As with the iPod, you are trapped to Apple's way of doing things. Apple have always had closed environments, which might benefit some basic users, but it frustrates the power users. While Symbian S60 offers tons of different ways to interact with your phone, connect it to your computer and load content onto it, with the iPhone you're confined to using iTunes or iPhoto. Also, while you can completely change the look and feel of an S60 device, move things around and optimize the unit to your liking (not to mention the potential Windows Mobile offers in that apartment), with the iPhone you simply can't. At all. "

Once you jailbreak your phone, you may be surprised that iPhone is as customizable, if not more customizable than winmo phone. You want more rows/columns of icon? You want less rows/columns of icon? You want No icons on a page? You want to show different information on the taskbar like date and avaialble memory? You want to give name to every page on the desktop? You want to make it look like a winmo today screen? You want it to look like a vista pc? You want the home button to do different things? You want volume rocker to change track rather than volume? Go to Cydia and you'll find hundreds and hundreads of customization available.

"9. No Support For Flash

The iPhone's Safari browser doesn’t support Flash animations or videos. That is limiting, since the majority of Internet videos are in Flash and hence cannot be viewed. Luckily, to avoid a complete belly flop, the iPhone of course has a Youtube Application for watching YouTube videos. "

This is a problem for winmo phone as well AFAIK. Not for you?

"10. It Can't Handle Memory Cards"

For those requiring more memory, the 32GB coming with the next iPhone should be a good news.

However, I speculate that vast majority of users do not use up all the 16 GB at the moment.

How many winmo devices had performed useful roles throughout their useful lifes with far far less than 16GB? I sugges that vast majority of the winmo phones have.

"11. No Cut & Paste"

True for non-jailbroken phone. Not true if you jailbreak it or if for the upcoming 3.0 phone.

"12. It Doesn't Support Java

Unlike all other major smartphone platforms (WinMo, Symbian, Android), the iPhone doesn't natively support Java. You still think it's the most advanced phone in the world? "

Winmo supporst Java? Try to use your HD to see the live updating exchange rate on this webpage and tell me if ANY winmo phone can do that.

http://www.fxstreet.com/rates-charts/charts-panel/

To be able to handle java elements on webpages is what you want Java for. Not to run Opera Mini LOL.

"13. The Battery Cannot be Removed"

Yes, this is the only criticism that has some real basis in your entire essay.

"14. Tethering is Missing"

Just jailbreak your phone mate. I can do that without problem.

"15. It is Grossly Overpriced"

I can give you two different response here:

a. My HTC HD costs me AUD1300 but my iPHone 3g 16GB costs AUD899, both without contract. Go figure out which one is overpriced.

b. You pay peanuts you get monkey.

Have a nice day.

Cheers.