Originally Posted by
SpdyEvo02
The iPhone is awfull. 1) Consider what it lacks: expansion slot, removable battery, tactile buttons, no third-party applications, 3G radio, premium camera, carrier variety, A2DP.
While battery may not seem like a big deal, something that is so consuming as an iPhone will use up huge amounts of battery life. You have to support 3 radios, huge color screen, digitizer, and also the large flash memory. Avid handheld users will be fine with this, but for the average phone user, which uses a phone for probably a week to 3 days before they charge and don't carry a charger around, that is horrible. Not everyone is a road warrior. Add to this that once you have sucked the life out of the $600 device, you'll end up sending the phone back to Apple or AT&T for $100 to change the battery.
One of the killers for the younger crowd is the lack of tactile buttons. For texters that rely heavily on knowing the combinations with one or two hands and need to text without having to look at the screen (in class, in the car, etc), they will be at a lost as to how to accomplish this. Another aspect of this is that the screen is relatively small for typing anyways and without a stylus to do something like Grafiti or transcriber, you will need a rather large space to type, which is like using virtual grafiti on a Sony TG50.
No third-party? What does this mean? It means you get to use the phone as a phone and as a music player. Oh, and a web browser. . . (no buttons though). This means you can't use this for a smartphone, something that prosumers need. That means editting documents, corporate softwares, presenter software, GPS solutions, etc etc. This also means paying shitloads for games, no independent incentive to make apps to improve the iPhone, and very limited ability to expand outside of what Apple and the carriers want.