EDDIEWONG

And thank god for that. No, not because I’m really into this thing. Its more like, ‘it’s finally over’ so the Mac related sites I usually visit can finally talk about something else.

Jeez, for weeks, every Mac site I read has talked about nothing other than the iPhone. Seriously, I mean talked about nothing. Daily updates were iPhone, iPhone, iPhone! Things like… AT&T iPhone training manual released, iPhone launch guide released, AT&T’s EDGE is slow, iPhone has new battery, free iPhone for employees, etc., etc., etc. It was really getting to me. I didn’t bother to read those articles, just the titles showing up constantly on my RSS reader was enough to drive me nuts.

Back to the iPhone, if I was in US (or UK), I guess I would get an iPhone because it is like the funkiest thing around. But being in Japan, I couldn’t care less. Reason being, cellphone networks and handsets are pretty good here - nothing more I could ask for. Also, I’ve never really believed in ‘one-unit-does-all’. Sure, it would be hella convenient to carry only one device that does everything but let’s face it, battery-life isn’t exactly where we would like them to be right now. Imagine: you have an iPhone, you listen to a few hours of music while shopping, then you watch like an hours worth of video while on the train or at a cafe, then you send a few good emails, then you get an emergency call but the battery dies on you! That would suck, huh?

Sealed battery
I mean, the iPhone is no doubt a good phone/device (except that it is not 3G), but not having access to the battery is really silly. For a device like this, I believe it is essential that we can just slide out the battery and put in a spare when one runs dry. But no, the battery is sealed in the device just like the iPods. Yes, there are a lot of external battery packs that connect to the iPod connector (some take 4x AA batteries) but still, carrying an extra iPhone battery is better than carrying a big add-on pack with 4x AAs…

No external memory card slot
Also, there is no memory card slot on the iPhone. Even with the high-end model, 8GB does not hold a great deal of video nor music. OK, memory cards are not cheap and not big in capacity but hey, most of us have accumulated quite a few SD cards and wouldn’t it be great if we could slot in even a 256mb card? That’s still an extra 256mb of storage - good enough for storing a lot of the iPhone’s 2-megapix photos, right? So yeah…

Never leave home without it
Whenever I go out, I always carry my iPod despite my cellphone’s ability to playback music and download music/MTVs over-the-air (AU Lismo). Like said, I just don’t quite trust battery-life. So, with all the above mentioned, even if I was in US and I happen to own an iPhone, I would definitely not use it for music playback - I’d leave that job to my standalone iPod player. But if the battery in the iPhone was replaceable like all other mobiles, then that would be a different story…

For now, I’d be more than happy if Apple threw out a new wide-screen iPod based on the iPhone’s technology… fingers crossed!