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[Michael Czeiszperger <michael AT czeiszperger.org>]

On Jan 10, 2007, at 9:34 AM, Michael Williams wrote:

> I'm a Mac user and fanboy, and I think the iPhone looks/seems really
> cool, but I have a couple of major hurdles to get over:
>
> 1)  Let's be honest here:  face grease.  Maybe I'm just a big
> greaseball (what do you mean I *shouldn't* bathe in a replenishing mix
> of butter and light sweet crude?) but I am constantly having to wipe
> off the screen on my current phone.  The iPhone is *all* *screen*.
> That thing would look terrible after a week of being shoved up against
> my face.

I totally agree with you on this.  Its not a show stopper for me, but  
there's going to be lots of people rubbing these things on their  
shirts and pants to wipe of sweat if they put it to their faces to  
talk.  Maybe that's where the blue-tooth ear bud comes in?  You'd  
never have to put it to your face then...

> 2) $500?  I can't describe, on a family-friendly list, the things that
> phone would have to do to be worth $500.  However, I have never been
> much enchanted by the whole concept of smartphones and PDAs and such,
> so maybe that's a great price, I dunno.  It just seems, like... wow.

The presentation goes into that.  Currently "smart phones" like the  
Treo are $499 to $599 *with* a contract!  You can get cheaper  
smartphones like the Blackberry from between $249 and $349 with a  
contract.   The iPhone is also a 4 or 8GB iPod, which is $199 or $249.

So, add up the cost of both the phone and an iPod nano, and you're  
ahead of a Treo and an iPod, and somewhere in the range of a a  
blackberry and an iPod.

The problem with this logic is:

1. I just bought an 60GB iPod last year.
2. I just got a new RAZR.

How, oh how could I possibly justify spending $500 on another device?  
How can I ever live without using Cover Flow on my iPod :-)

http://www.apple.com/itunes/jukebox/coverflow.html