Jack forgets that the Apple hate runs deep and runs true, both in the media and in the population at large. Journalists may get caught up in the Jobs show, but every other minute there's a story about Apple dying, exploding, sucking, overreaching, etc.

"A big part of it, of course, is CEO Steve Jobs, who could affix a matte-white Apple logo to a pot of gruel and make us beg for seconds." Sheesh. Yeah, the hype is justified, and it's got little to do with Job's salesmanship. Apple took the stumbling MP3 player market by storm, with ONE product done right. Having a reputation for "doing products right", Apple announces their foray into cell phones, and demos an evolutionary/revolutionary (you choose -- actually, the market will) product. Those who looked at the demos on Apple's site said "Holy Sh*t -- someone figured it out, FINALLY".

It's a big story, seeing how every person between 6 and 90 in the developed world seems to have (a) a cell phone and (b) an iPod strapped to their hips, and if the iPhone delivers - it'll be a long-term success for Jobs & co.

The last "pot of gruel" with an apple logo that I recall was the Newton, and it was more like a plate of Sushi in 1975; a bit before its time, but heck, kinda tasty.

So yeah, for a tech reporter, a business reporter, a "lifetsyle" reporter, even a fashion reporter... it's a very big story with its share of drama. Now, Mr. Manjoo, can't you come up with something a little more original to write about?

I really don't get the hype of the iPhone. All conventional wisdom of the mobile idustry and Human-Computer interaction reseach indicates that it's a bad idea.

For one - when it comes to handsets, Form Factor is king. The iPhone is just too big and clunky to fit onubstrusively in your pocket. And if you're willing to trade pocket space for bells'n'whistles, there are already state-of-the-art (but not exactly bestselling) models like Nokia's N9x series.

Secondly - no buttons? A touch screen interface? A couple of decades of research into touch screens have shown us two things:

a) They're a poor replacement for actual buttons. Buttons give haptic feedback - you feel them "click", and the brain processes those impulses much faster than it processes pure visual input.

b) To the degree that touch-screens work: the bigger, the better. A normal computer screen is too small for comfortable touch-screen interaction.

So, in practical terms: you can't dial numbers or write SMS'es nearly as fast or comfortably on a touch-screen as on a keypad.

OK, the iPhone has one innovative feature: it's actually multi-touch and also accepts gestural input. So you can use two fingers instead of one. That would be really neat when you actually have a whole hand free to gesture with. Thing is that mobile phones are usually designed to be operated with a thumb only, and most of us consumers prefer it that way, seeing as how a mobile phone is often used while carrying a bag or drinking coffee or flipping through papers with your other hand.

So the iPhone is basically a clumsy, feature-poor PDA. Should you buy one? No. If you really want those features - consider a PDA or high-end mobile phone, or a regular mobile phone with the Opera Mini web browser. But will it sell? Absolutely. Will the Apple fans be disappointed? Never to your face.

The rest of us, though, are in for some good laughs as we watch the fanboys and fangirls clumsily trying to manipulate their clunky iPhoneys while trying to look cool.

"Steve Jobs, who produced the first computer ordinary people could use[...]"

I can only laugh at that statement. Unless you think "ordinary people" could afford a $2000 Apple II in 1982 and completely discount the far more affordable (and color) Commodore 64s, Vic 20, Timex Sinclairs, TRS-80s, etc., your statment is simply laughable. Apple has ALWAYS been out of reach of the masses and in fact would be out of business now if they had not targeted college students (who took out loans to buy em) in the 90s.

And to this day, iPods, the yuppy status symbols of the millenium are overpriced just like everything else Apple has ever created.

$500 phone? Kiss my Ass. At&T only? Kiss it again.

It's evident that the press has turned. Fortune has been on Steve's case for a while, and more and more people, like the ever-stylish Manjoo, are piling on to the Apple bashing.

By the way, do you understand anything about tech? Will you please write something that isn't slavish -- wait a minute, you've returned to the Apple-bashing over and over. Huh.

How about explaining where the Wow! is in Vista? Or how much you need a $10,000 Big Ass Table Computer like Surface?

The only people who are pumped up about this toy are the rich and ephemeral - and while there are a lot of them in this country, thanks to Bush, there are a lot more of us, the poor working slobs trying to make our declining incomes stretch.

For the record, I am a long-time Mac user, but I also own four Windows PC's, two of which I built myself. And while I enjoy my current Mac, I am reminded that in the past decade I've dumped two others on Goodwill. Their component parts can't be rebuilt into new, faster homemade Mac's because there are no homemade Mac's to speak of.

I have never bought an iPod, since other MP3 players are cheaper, if less user-friendly. Paying $50 for a thumb-sized, inconvenient MP3 player is better than paying $200 for an iPod with the same capacity and immense steal-ability. It's only freaking music, people.

And the iPhone is only a freaking phone. As Mr. Manjoo said (after his own Jobs-gasm about the iPhone this last week) it is a device with distinct physical drawbacks. Touch screens go faulty quickly. (You ever deal with one at a Wal-Mart credit card reader? They have extras in the back to plug in after the frequent failures.) Teeny screens are no good for watching TV or reading web sites. The stuff shown in the iPhones ads are simulated graphich which, thanks to America's non-enforced consumer laws, don't have to be disclaimed during the ad. Real LCD screens that size have the clarity of looking through eyeglasses of the wrong prescription smeared with mayonnaise.

And does anyone remember the stink of the iPods with the non-replaceable batteries? The poster counter-campaign in New York that shamed Apple into a new model...which people had to pay for with no trade-ins allowed? There are undoubtedly hidden flaws that nobody in Cuptertino knows about, or is willing to admit.

Picking up toys like the iPhone, in an economy about to collapse, is a really stupid move, even for the rich.