I can tell you that in the first hour it works a little better than I thought, but I’m still not sure it works as well as a regular keyboard.

The iphone looks really slick, but every time one of my friends says "you know, I think I'm going to get one" I caution them about the keyboard. I have a Sidekick. I do a LOT of chatting and texting on it. The reason is that the keyboard is big. Big enough to efficiently type with two fingers. Often I talk to people who say "Oh, I don't care, I don't do a lot of texting." Then I look at their phone. They have a 9 digit keypad. Of course they don't do a lot of texting. Texting on a 9 digit keypad is extremely tedious. If they had an efficient interface, they'd do more of it. Once you have an effective way to use it, it becomes a very valuable tool and you don't want to give it up. It is often very helpful to be able to send short, asynchronous messages to someone instead of bothering them with a call.

Now, sure Apple's phone might not be marketed at me. They might be going after the users who never have never had a real keyboard on their phone and don't know what they are missing. But Apple is a computer company, and their whole story is that their phone works great with the Internet. The Internet is about transmitting and not just receiving, and nothing "works great" with it if it doesn't have an efficient transmitter.

Add to this the prospect of downgrading your ipod hard drive or having your ipod hard drive size directly connected with phone upgrades, and I'm just not sure I see anything here that I really want. Sure, it looks slick, but it will make it harder to do what I need to do with my phone and my ipod.

I'm not saying it won't be successful. LOTS of people will be willing to sacrifice substance for form. I'm just saying those are not the kind of people that talk to me about purchasing an iphone.

Here is a telling quote:

The new phone may resonate with a new kind of mobile user, said Donald Norman, a product designer who is co-director of the Segal Design Institute at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.

"Apple says, 'We're not selling to the person who lives on his Blackberry, we're selling to the person who listens to music and surfs the Web,'" he said.

Apple, you don't understand the Internet.

Apple 2.0: Apple iPhone: All Eyes on the Keyboard (Or Lack Thereof)