Size matters

Now I've recovered from the initial excitement of the iPhone launch, I've found my thoughts turning to a couple of interesting side issues.

The first one concerns how the devil they kept the whole thing "secret". Obviously there was plenty of rumour and speculation, fueled by deliberate misdirection on Apple's part, but still they kept the real product details from rising above the flotsam and jetsam.

I imagined a fully locked down, windowless building, isolated networks, lathes in the corner, background checks on all employees, only long term employees involved, and cavity checks at the door. No phones and no cameras allowed. So I was pleased to see this article on the CNN website which looked into the story. Didn't answer all my questions, but interesting none the less.

Here's the tech community discussing it on Slashdot.

The other issue is that I'm surprised no one has baulked at the size of the hard drive. $499 for 4-gig, $599 for 8-gig??? That's rubbish!! I know there are plenty of people out there who have bought nanos and shuffles, and are happy with them, but c'mon! There's not much point me giving up my 60 gig iPod unless the new device can play the podcasts and TV shows I watch on it. I currently use 53 gig of hard drive on my iPod. At the moment it looks like, physically, the iPhone is about the same size as my iPod and phone (K800i) combined.

So there's a way for them to go before I'll buy the product. Which is a good job really, as it doesn't come out here until Q4 2007. Which is when my current mobile contract expires anyway. We'll see.

One of the phone usability experts at my company has posted his review on our company blog - it's very good. Click here to read it.