I have to admit I’m pretty interested in the iPhone. When it first started looking like the rumors were true, and this was really going to be coming out, I got pretty hopeful that it would be a decent PDA in addition to being a phone, and it looks like it is. I haven’t really been 100% satisfied with any PDA I’ve owned since the Newton. The iPhone seems to have most of the stuff I’d want in a PDA: a touch-screen, a decent contact manager (and, presumably, calendar), and a robust OS that can (probably) do a decent job of running games and miscellaneous third-party software. I don’t really *need* it to be a decent music and video player, but if it is, then that’s OK. And if I can do a decent job of browsing the web with it, then that’s great too.
I’m a little concerned about the fact that it’s only going to be available through Cingular. I’m currently with Verizon, and I don’t have any problems with them, so I’m not enthusiastic about switching carriers. Looking at Cingular’s web site, it looks like they charge a minimum of $40/month for voice and $20/month for data, under their current plans. Assuming the iPhone plans with be similar, that’d be $60/month for service, minimum. Right now, I’m only paying about $20/month, though of course I’m getting very limited access to the internet on my current phone, and I have a very limited voice plan. Jobs didn’t talk at all about monthly pricing during his keynote. I’m hoping that maybe there will be a special monthly plan for the iPhone that gets you voice and data together for a reasonable sum, maybe $40 or $50 per month total.
There’s a somewhat interesting article on the iPhone over at Time.com, by the way, with a bit of history on the development of the device and some of the reasoning that went into the design.