The only thing the iPhone has going for it is style. All flash, no substance. Take away the Apple Marketing Machine and it's an underwhelming half-n-half with a neat interface.
I don't watch TV and don't pay much attention to print ads, I'd never even seen an iPhone TV ad at all until I last week when I read on Engadget.com about the Saturday Night Live parody of one and decided to go see the real thing on Apple's website. I don't think the Apple Marketing Machine has anything to do with it - it certainly didn't affect my purchase of an iPhone.
My neighbor showing me his and letting me play with it for about 20 minutes was all the sales pitch that I needed. I don't understand how it's "all flash and no substance". It works fine as a cell phone, a video iPod, and for web browsing. I don't see how this is a "half-n-half". It hits on it's three main features just fine - with a nice interface as well. It's the most impressive web-browsing cell phone that I've ever used... and I've played with a Nokia N95 as well.
I understand that a lot of people don't like the iPhone - that's fine, plenty of people like things that I'm not too impressed with... like baseball. Each to their own. But to pan it as some sort of lame gizmo that only half works doesn't make sense to me. It's expensive, it's locked to AT&T - carrier that many detest (myself included). it's missing a bunch of features that many of us would like, and it's been ridiculously utterly rampagingly over-hyped. Plenty of reasons not to like it. But I don't understand what's the complain about it's function... it does what it's supposed to pretty well. Surprisingly well given that it's Apple's first try at a cell phone.
Raduque, I don't understand the half-n-half comment, nor the "all flash, no substance" - could you clarify?
For what it's worth, I think there are plenty of better smartphones out there than the iPhone. I like a lot of the HTC phones, and I think the Nokia N95 is better than the iPhone in most respects as well. So, my comments above are not along the lines of "the iPhone is the best", but more along the lines of "the iPhone isn't just some kind of crappy marketing thing that doesn't do anything well."