not really, have not seen them a whole lot.

However, I am a little annoyed at all the news coverage. It's like every little scrap of info is picked up. For example, TUAW.com (The Unoffical Apple Weblog) looks like it has turned into TUiW (The Unoffical iPhone Weblog). they dedicate whole gallery space to the contract, for example.

and yes, I do want one, but I won't be able to afford one for a while.

-digital

I don't watch TV, but when I look at the macworld RSS feed, or the daringfireball.net RSS feed, it's almost all iphone-related.

I'm not getting one -- I don't even like cellular telephones to begin with, and I do somewhat wish that every other "industry analyst" would just shut up. Why oh why do I care that thirty different people, all of whom get their cash from Apple competitors anyway, say "the iPhone is gonna suck" ?

Whyyy???

Not seen any yet.

Ah, I don't think they're playing outside the USA. Even Canada won't have iPhone for at least another few months, January maybe?

But that just means that in Canada, England, Germany, Japan, et al there'lll be an epic-huge market for iphones, I bet. I can see it now. Somebody buys one iphone and can probably sell it overseas for enough money to get two or three more.

actually, it already is. if you look around, you can run it in activated mode off a unregistered sim, and it acts like a 6g wifi iPod. the only thing that does not work is making calls, but everything else does. Browsing the web, watching videos, checking your email, etc.

-digital

I've never really understood this thing of being so impatient for the latest gadget that you would pay a lot more than it will cost when it is released in your country in only a few months time, for a version of the device that will never work as well as the cheaper country-specific one that you could wait for. Like when people pay huge amounts of money to import a game console when it's released somewhere else, only to then have a machine that will only play imported games and DVDs for ever, when they could have just waited a few months and got one a lot cheaper and doesn't require a lot of hassle every time you want to get a new game!

I suppose so - I wouldn't even buy the first-gen iPhone at all, even a country-specific version at normal prices, given that the second-gen version will have all the inevitable bugs wiped out and most likely some of the key missing features added. Not that I will be buying one at all of course, but I'm talking about if I had that kind of money

Hm, as far as owning something before it comes out in your own country, (like Americans who want Japanese game consoles), it tends to be something that lasts a bit, because they want other games before they come out.

I suppose my statement about europeans and asians wanting iphones is somewhat unfounded, but I've already heard Canadians and others wanting iphones, and saying they might get one anyway, even in "airplane mode" or whatever. But I suppose I am not they, so I can't say what they want.

If it is possible to use ani phone without the phone functionality, I would be interested somewhat, but it's still just a glorified, way-expensive ipod nano, albeit with video functionality, a speaker, an included dock, a camera, and a few other advanced capabilities like wifi and web browsing.

What I'm interested almost more than the iphone itself is whether or not these devices will last long, and by that I mean -- whether or not you'll be able to use one without a contact for it's non-phone-ey things, in say, two or three years when people start dumping their old ones in favor of a newer one with a hard disc or better battery or whatever reason.

It would be cool, in say... a decade, to be able to say I have "The Apple Accessory" for my computer, just like at the MLA(both) it's cool to say you have a quicktake or a conferencing cam or a style/laserwriter or a powercd, etc etc. (hmm... Newton + QuickTake + PowerCD = iPhone?)

At any rate...

I haven't seen a single iPhone ad yet, so i can't be sick of 'em.

Lucky you. I have seen one or two just today, and I almost never watch TV. Plus, the people who are saying bad things about the iPhone just to get attention... and it didn't stop on June29th either... it continues and it's annoying.

Maybe you can just be like me and not care. We don't have iPhone ads here, and i don't care because:

a) I'm in Australia
b) I can't use iPhone
c) I can't AFFORD an iPhone, even if i could use one
d) We don't have AT&T here
e) Even if we had AT&T here, i have no interest in becoming an AT&T customer
f) My VCR has this hot new feature which i believe is called a "fast forward button".