If Apple is going to be a major player in the cell phone market, it will take years, not months. And even people who will never buy an Apple product should be thrilled they’ve entered the market because all will benefit from some real competition in the area of innovation.

I won’t buy an iPhone until they come out w/a cheaper version because I don’t need all of those features and therefore can’t justify the expense.

As far as Apple aesthetics go, I’m hardly immune to them. I’ve been a Mac user for 16 years and currently own two of them. I’d love to trade in the non-intuitive Palm UI for the vastly superior Apple iPhone UI. But not for $600. And not if I’m forced to change service providers.

I do believe the limitation to Cingular is a drawback, the pricetag seems rather dear, and the functional limitations or drawbacks will only really become apparent once a lot of people get them into their hands. We should revisit this in the summer.

To answer your question, I believe good design as exhibited by iPhone has to do w/the UI: (1) The “Multi-Touch” input technology combined w/core animation provide for a sensual way to interact w/the device. There is only one permanent button on the front, allowing software solutions which are superior to real buttons in that they can change according to the context. (2) And more importantly, the design, or organization of the interface insures that all significant features (complexity) are efficiently accesses by very few & self-evident steps (simplicity). Watching the SF (apple.com) video of the device in use demonstrates this, people got visibly & vocally excited b/c it makes use of vision & touch, two very sophisticated (& overlooked) aspects of human intelligence. The beauty of the device is NOT superfluous, it actually enhances the functionality of the design. That is what good design is all about, hence the saying “form follows function.” The iPhone makes apparent just how poorly designed current smart phone are.

“As technologies become more complex, engineers will find it increasingly necessary to take human performance factors, & eventually organizational factors into account in their designs.”- Robert Pool, Beyond Technology

We can’t know exactly how intuitive, simple or elegant the iPhone is going to prove to be because nobody’s used one yet. And while iPod definitely revolutionized the personal music player, it took Apple more than one try to get it right. So I think we have good cause to be somewhat skeptical of the iPhone out of the gate.

The iPhone doesn’t offer anything new (the what) but it does offer those features in a way that’s not just eye candy: its about really good design, design that makes those features accessible through intuitive, simple, and elegant ways. Like OS X and the iPod, the content comes forward, not the device. Of course, techies like it the other way around and therefore are blinded by the highly specialized and privileged skill sets that inform their perspective.

Get off you’re anesthetic and see how technology is not only more pleasurable with aesthetics, it’s more effective & efficient because it takes into account the human senses. But maybe I’m talking to a brain in a vat.