Given the complete and utter ‘Media Orgy’ over the iPhone, I’m with this guy over at the Register…

Which is kind of a shame, ’cause up until now I’d been looking forward to it coming out.

Seriously though: although the post itself is amusing – it’s the comments which have been more telling about the general feelings about the iPhone, amongst the general technical community in the UK (and I use ‘technical’ in the loosest sense hear as the Register has a lot of readers outside the ‘technical’ arena, and outside of the UK).

The most telling theme is that much of the iPhone functionality has been available in Europe for a fair few years now – in fact with most handsets having 3G – most of them still have a higher level of functionality already. There’s quite a level of surprise of just how functionally limited the iPhone is.

Another good point is that, due to being touch screen, you probably need to use both hands: one to hold the phone and the other to use it. A standard handset can usually be manipulated by one hand – this is a big hitch, which users will really struggle with. The key to adoption of technology: userbility.

Personally I’m up for a bit of technology ‘convergence’ – so I like some of the principals behind the iPhone (outside of making Apple a ‘shed load’ of cash). I don’t want to carry mp3, mobile phone, camera, dictaphone, PDA, etc. around with me – just one single, multi-purpose device. Until that comes out I’m happy to go with the least number of devices I can get away with – a combined mp3, mobile phone and camera (with some basic PDA functions, like diary synchronisation, email and web browsing – but no document creation or editing) and a seperate dictaphone (doubles as a 1GB USB key – always good).

You’ve probably heard about all the limitations this ‘baby’ has – but lets go through them again, just for the record:

• No MMS – er, like isn’t MMS the ‘Killer App’ for mobile in most of the World ?
• No 3G support – browsing via GPRS – isn’t that so 2004 ?
• No Adobe Flash support is officially out – so no playing YouTube (or even EUTube or intruders.tv)
• No voice dialling – whatever – most electronic devices don’t recognise my dulcet ‘Brummie’ tones anyway
• No recording video clips – there’s a camera, so photos, but it won’t record video (so no posting to YouTube either) – another ‘hasn’t that been standard on most handsets for a couple of years now moment’
• Music can’t be used as a ringtone – even if it’s plain old MP3. No additional ringtones will be sold at launch. But you can bet the farm that they’ll be selling ringtones real soon (probably via iTunes)
• Contact groups can’t be emailed as lists of contacts
• 300 to 400 charges before the iPhone will lose battery capacity (you’ll have to send it in and get the battery replaced for a fee). I charge my current phone once or twice a day – so that’s easily going to be less than a year (unless the iPhone can do a 24 hour, work-day, stretch without recharge – which I don’t believe) – frankly I expect more out of a pricey handset…
• No A2DP support. So multi-device bluetooth, which relies on A2DP is out too
• The unverified rumour that the he mobile version of OS X the iPhone runs takes up 700MB of the device’s capacity

Does this mean I won’t get one, when they come out in the UK ?

Probably not – but I will be waiting for a gen. 2 device – which addresses these functionality ‘short falls’ – before I do commit my hard earned to Mr. Jobbs.