John Rain Has an iPhone and I don't, but I've tried one

      John Rain, the Japanese-American assassin anti-hero of Barry Eisler's great series or novels, already has his iPhone, and they're not even on sale.  I was reading Requiem For An Assassin, the latest in the series, which came out a few weeks ago. Rain arrives in Palo Alto from Asia, and needs to buy his tools, so he goes into a Cingular store (pre ATT) and buys an iPhone.  He proceeds to use it for calls, and to monitor a GPS tracker he's put on someone's car.  He does, of course, assassinate a Silicon Valley CEO while making it look like natural causes (his specialty), something I've often thought of doing at the end of interminable board meetings.

Fortunately, I met a friend last night who,as an important member of the press, already had an iPhone, and got to play with it.  The key reviews (Baig, Levy, Mossberg, Pogue) all pretty much have it nailed. The virtual keyboard is not an issue, the screen is gorgeous, the hand feel and design is tops, and the lack of Exchange server connectivity and the use of only the slower part of the EDGE network are killers.  If i got one (which I do not plan to in this version), I'd try and put a screen saver picture of a Scharffenberger dark chocolate bar on it, since it's about the same size, and just as sweet.

I'm going to see Steve Jobs' other debut this weekend, Pixar's Ratatouille, and just put my Blackberry on vibrate.

Comments

[David S. Rose]

Nah, don't be a goose! Run out and get one now...seriously. While it took over two days for AT&T to activate my iPhone (they really, really, REALLY suck), this thing is truly an order of magnitude away from anything else on the market. It honestly is the closest I can imagine to a product from the future dropping anachronistically into the present.

I am finding myself using this MUCH more than my Treo (to which I was addicted), because it's really the first thing that delivers on the promise of the Ubiquitous Cloud. While EDGE is slow as molasses, the WiFi handoff is slick, seamless and really fast...and these days I always seem to be in range of an access point somewhere.

Even my wife, who can't tell a text message from an MP3, is warming to it, simply for the Google Maps application, which is fast, slick, powerful and unbelievably useful. Throw in all the other little widgets which I find even easier to use here than on my Mac, and Apple has changed the playing field.

The iPhone shouldn't be compared to the iPod, which was an incremental improvement over the competition, but one that precisely nailed the market. This is much closer to the introduction of the original Mac in 1984, which marked a turning point in the industry. As a matter of fact, the user experience of the iPhone is so drastically better than anything else I have seen, that I'm having a tough time coming up with an appropriate analogy.

Now, ask me how I *really* feel :-).

[Things are not completely perfect, however. While the lack of Exchange integration doesn't personally affect me, I find the email interface, while slick and sexy, to probably be best for people with smaller volumes. With lots of accounts that attract lots of spam, I wish there was a more powerful way to deal with items on a bulk basis, rather than taking at least two taps to delete each piece of unwanted mail...]

[Richie Hecker]

I have to respectfully disagree. As a reformed early adopter (I've owned a 1st generation Toshiba Tablet, Sony MiniDisk Player and early Treos) I've come to the determination that it's never worth buying first generation tech gadgets because even though they are cool, they have major flaws and end up driving you nuts.

The iphone still doesn't proper bluetooth capability and the calling plans suck. I use several thousand cell minutes a month and I don't like $1000 a month phone bills. Iphone v3 I will buy because it will probably be amazing but until then I'll stick with my current phone.

PS. I am kind of biased as I did swear off smart phones for the last 2 years, I had 23 (not exaggerating) Treo 600's and got sick to my stomach with the addiction and irritation.

Though from testing out the iphone it is a super cool toy though I think it's still in the toy phase.

Richie

[kuta nuta]

RAINMAKER

[Allene]

Good for people to know.