Schteck - I remember when you had a pretty exalted reaction to the Steve Jobs keynote speech when the iPhone concept was first introduced. What was it that initially drew you to it as such a ground breaking product ? Why was it considered so far beyond a other handheld devices like the Blackberry ?

Harrell - The Blackberry, Treo and various windows mobile devices have all been geared toward an extremely corporate IT market. With the exception of the Sidekick, there's really not been a product in this category that aims for mass-market appeal.

The iPhone is meant for regular people... teens who do a ridiculous amount of text messaging, for starters -- not the people you see addicted to their crackberries.

Also, I must admit, having a true web browser and potentially being able to run UNIX apps on the device gave me dreams of leaving my laptop at home on short trips.

Shteck - So in a nutshell, the iphone is a phone, a laptop and an ipod, all in one?

Harrell - Well, yes. And no. Currently, development on the platform is going to be limited to web-based applications. And all signs point to Apple opening the platform for licensed Application development in the future.

Schteck - So no Word, no Excel ?

Harrell - For your Word and Excel, you have the option of using the free GoogleApps right now. One example of how traditional applications are migrating to the webspace.

Schteck - The iphone's touch screen, buttonless interface has been generating a lot of buzz. Justifiably so ?

Harrell - I think so. It certainly economizes real estate and makes for an extremely impressive tech demo. If Apple does anything right it's the human part of human interface. A lot of hardware manufacturers and developers neglect that part of the equation.

Schteck - Can you calibrate the touch-sensitivity of the screen?

Harrell - Calibration and other hacking / tweaking options are entirely unknown at the moment. So many of these unknowns have really increased the mystique of the product, honestly.

Schteck - What if I want to turn the iPhone into just a regular phone with buttons? Can I do that ?

Harrell - Yes, there's a full-screen dialing interface that will pop up on the phone.

Schteck - How much is the iPhone going for ?

Harrell - $499 for a 4 gig model and $599 for an 8 gig model. There's pretty reliable information that a 2-year contract might *not* be necessary any more to make the purchase, but there's no telling if AT&T is going to try and rape iPhone users with exorbitant data fees. But buyers on day one should keep in mind that $499 might not really mean $499 once all is said and done.

Schteck - Can it tie into online phone applications, like Vonage and Skype ?

Harrell - Again, another unknown. You can bet your bottom dollar that AT&T wouldn't be very happy if that were to come to pass. Very much like the conspicuous absence of instant messaging in favor of SMS text messages.

Schteck - Didn't Verizon reject the partnership that Apple had offered them ?

Harrell - Verizon and T-Mobile both walked away. Cingular (now re-swallowed by the AT&T mothership) has spun the story as accepting the product, no strings, sight unseen. But that's urban legend. Unless you're Steve Jobs, nobody knows how it really went down.

Schteck - I've noticed that the SMS (text messaging) interface looks a lot like iChat. Which sounds like really good news to me. Do you think Apple has successfully addressed some of the more cumbersome issues of text messaging with the new text messaging interface on the iPhone.

Harrell - I think they have. SMS generally lacks context... if it's a half hour between messages in a conversation, you generally don't remember what you're talking about.

In addition, the full keypad might do away with annyg txt abbr.

Schteck - Heh. We can only hope. I really like the selective voicemail playback feature.

Harrell - It lets you see an iconic representation of your voicemail, kind of like an email inbox. You can choose which messages you want to hear in a particular order.

Schteck - Is the 2 megapixel camera in the iPhone conspicuously better than any other phone camera ?

Harrell - I'd say it's slightly above average on paper. Certainly large enough to use for some high-resolution uses like larger web images or print, assuming the lens optics and compression are decent.

Schteck - Do you think the cost of the iPhone will make people treat it more like a delicate piece of jewelry instead of like a tough ol' phone that they can haul around anywhere?

Harrell - I think so, Apple's certainly done a good job of making the iPod a lifestyle totem.

Schteck - But that could work to its detriment as well, couldn't it ? If someone is in the habit of losing their cell phone... they wouldn't exactly be inclined to by an iPhone, would they?

Harrell - I think Apple knows how to break into the early adopter market and refine the product as its price comes down and footprint increases.

Schteck -Often with "all in one" products, there is the widespread perception that when you combine a bunch of different features into one machine, there is brutal tradeoff somewhere. For example with the advent of printer-copier-scanner-faxes, many people feel that there is a "functionality sacrifice" in one of the features. With regards to the iPhone being a phone, internet browser, iPod and camera, do you think there will be a similar "functionality sacrifice" somewhere? Which feature do you think will take the hit ?

Harrell - I think that there's a touch of functionality sacrifice -- but mostly over Apple's nigh legendary usability standards, and political dealings with AT&T. Convergence devices generally fail because they try to do too much, instead of providing an outstanding experience with reduced functionality.

I also think that the lack of instant messaging and application development have more to do with protecting AT&T's cash cows ($0.15 per text message comes to mind, as does Skype)

The phone has wifi and unix underpinnings. With a true development kit, it would be reasonably simple to get skype working on it, and there's no way AT&T would go for it.

Schteck - So that begs the question: what kind of opportunity is the iPhone going to offer developers?

Harrell - Initially, Apple's walking a fine line. They're standing on the "we don't want third party apps crashing the iphone" soapbox, which is probably more a distraction from "AT&T doesn't want third party apps circumventing calls or sms on their network"

I have the feeling that if the phone proves a hit, Apple will have more leverage to open up the experience, but I believe in order to have cobranding and distribution in the US, their hands are tied.

In europe, however, it's extremely common to purchase a phone and just swap your sim card. Phones aren't locked to providers the way they are in the US.

So Apple doesn't necessarily need a service partner in europe at all.

Shteck - Do you think the iPhone will eventually eat into the sales of the iPod ?

Harrell - I think so, but you can be assured that Apple is classifying the iPhone as an iPod for precisely that reason. Initially, those of us with huge music libraries will still carry both, I'd wager.