Well.... I lamed out and decided to get an iPhone 4 after all. The iPad is tempting but too expensive and JCR's comments about not using his iPad as much after getting his iPhone4 seemed to resonate with my gut feeling of what I would end up doing with it. If the iPad had a front-facing video camera for Skype and SD-card support, I'd reconsider but methinks that Steve J. is keeping the video-camera for the iPad 2.0 -- and likely will never get an SD-card or USB jack since Steve likes to keep it proprietary.
I thought seriously about getting an Android-based phone, but in the end lamed out on those too. They don't seem to have any must-have advantages over the iPhone. One thing that would have swayed me is free tethering, but it seems that all of the 'droids that have tethering also have it as an extra option, just like the iPhone. And though you can root them and add a hack to tether, I could also jailbreak and do it on my iPhone if I was that inclined.
So I lamed out and got an iPhone. I drove up to my "nearest" Apple store, which is in West Hartford. They were clean out of stock (and judging from the inside of the Apple Store, I think Apple is entirely quitting the computer business and selling only iPhones and iPads).
I walked across the mall and went to a Radio Shack. I knew that as the unsexiest store in the Mall, it had the best chance of actually having stock of the iPhone and I was right.
So I'm now the proud (?) owner of an iPhone 4 -- 32 gig.
Thanks everyone for the comments!
The iPhone is no longer the Jesus-phone in my mind.... My pet peeves about it:
- Why can't we sync over bluetooth or WiFi? Totally idiotic limitation for no reason.
- Apple licensing DRM crap on video cables. Makes a $3 cable cost $50.
- Bluetooth stack still weak after all these years.
- No micro-SD card means that we have to pay a $100 premium for the 32 gigabyte version.
- AT&T.
- iTunes App Store a genuine monopoly that would make Microsoft proud.
- iTunes not allowing Google Voice or Skype true API parity (even though they allow Line2).
- Video-chat only works between iPhone 4s and not even with Apple's own iChat? Lame!
- Many more... add your own!
p.s. RadioShack offered $114 for my iPhone 3 when I upgraded. I said "no thanks" as it's going to my partner, but still it might be a good deal for some people.
Haha funny to think of getting the iPhone as the uncool option, but I understand its geek context and had the same twinge. I think you'll be happy in the end, but if not you get to go through the same dilemma in a couple more years!
Did want to point something out about the iPad though. There is a Camera Connection Kit that will let you transfer pics to the device using either a USB connection or an SD card. http://store.apple.com/us/product/MC531ZM/A
I guess it's not so much that the iPhone is uncool but that Apple is doing its best imitation of North Korea that it can. I hate closed systems. At first, I liked that the iPhone was based on UNIX but it seems that Steve is rapidly trying to shut down any sense of a free-market, both in terms of free beer and free speech.
Yes, I know about the camera connection option for the iPad, but correct me if I'm wrong: you can't use attached SD card as extra storage for the iPad itself, for files or whatnot. So the iPad is not extensible in terms of data storage.