Behold, iPhone!

Wow was I wrong. I didn't want to overshoot with my predictions in case I was way out of the ballpark but whaddya know, Steve Jobs ended up pulling a rabbit out of the hat after all! I had macrumorslive.com running in a background window at work, automatically refreshing every 60 seconds. Once he'd gotten past the iTV (or rather "Apple TV" as they've decided to brand it), I was holding my breath as each update about the iPhone appeared on my screen.

The things that have grabbed my attention so far:

• Of course the touch interface that does away with a conventional keypad, especially the "pinch" to zoom feature
• The use of motion sensors to automatically re-orient the screen for widescreen mode video, and to turn the display off when you bring the phone to your ear
• The fact it runs OS X, so you get familiar apps like Safari, Widgets and an iChat-like interface for messaging
• The cost! Such innovation comes at a price, but lock-in to Cingular on a 2-year contract and an upfront handset price of $500 for the 4G model??? Ouch. That's pretty steep, especially considering that I can get a much better deal on a Windows Mobile Smartphone as a Microsoft employee, without contract.

The final bummer though -- not available until June. Such a tease...