Who’s right? Well about 10 days from now when the general public gets their hands on the thing we’ll find out for sure. But for now all we really have is speculation and conjecture. I like a good argument as well as anyone (maybe better in fact) so here are my thoughts.

“It’s going too expensive.” The price points have been released and even though we don’t know where AT&T is going to price the plans, the iPhone is still going to be expensive. There have been a lot of people saying that the phone is going to fail simply because cell phone users don’t want to pay that much.

I’m sorry but this is pretty much bunk. Apple’s already made it clear that they want this to be a high end device. The people who are going to buy it are going to have the money to spend in the first place. Price is really not a show stopper. As proof I give you the iPod. It has never been the cheapest music player on the market, yet it has sold extremely well. Better than even I thought, and when it came out I thought it would be a big flop.

People are already willing to pay a lot for devices like this. There’s an entire market for “gray market” phones. I myself bought my Nokia e61 from Mobile Planet as an imported European model. I spent just over $500 US for it. Why? Because it’s unlocked, and because it’s not feature hobbled like so many US cellular carriers like to do to their phones. Because at the time I bought it no US based carrier offered the phone, and to date none of them offer the phone with all of it’s features intact. Am I alone in this? Heck no. There are enough people buying phones like this to keep the gray market importers alive and well.

“But it doesn’t do 3G.” This is true, but the question is this: Is it the big deal that people think it is? For some, no doubt that it is. However as I’ve been thinking about this, I don’t think it’s going to be that big a deal for most people. I have GPRS data on my current phone. It’s okay for browsing the web from Airports and restaurants when I’m traveling. That’s all it really needs to do well. I don’t download movies with it. I don’t transfer any kind of large files. So I think it will be fine. I think most people are used to the internet connections on their phone sucking. Now there are people are lucky enough to live with 3G data services and I believe them when they say they can’t live without it. But I think the majority of American’s are already living without it. Would I want to downgrade my service? Nope. But I don’t have 3G now (my current carrier doesn’t support it even though my phone does) so I have nothing to miss.

“There’s no keypad. People need tactile feedback.” Well, I can tell you that the tactile feedback on my e61 is pretty much worthless. The keypad is so small I have a hard time hitting the keys I want. Fortunately I’m not trying to write novels. I do know people who do write novels (literally) but with Barbie Doll sized keypads I have to wonder is it tactile feedback or spacial memory that makes people good at typing with them?

What I think they have gotten right is that the keyboard goes away when you don’t need it. I do use my Nokia to surf the web, and it really is annoying that half the front of the device is taken up with a keypad. That’s space that could be used to display more of a web page.

I also really like the whole concept of using my finger directly on the screen to scroll around. I can’t describe how frustrating it is to try and navigate using the built in web browser on the Nokia. The cursor moves in 10×10 pixel increments. That may not seem like a big deal till you have a link you want to click on that is just smaller than that. You can never get the cursor to reach it.

Sure I can (and have) downloaded Opera Mini instead, but that brings up another valid point. The iPhone has a real internet browser. Opera Mini works great. Better than the built in browser on the phone. However for $500 you’d think that the built in browser would be better. Why should I have to download something else that while it works better doesn’t display the pages the way they would on a desktop computer? I know that Opera Mini makes the sacrifices it does in order to be more functional in a small space. I understand that and in the case of really small links I appreciate it. But I would like a browser that displays sites the same way they look on my PC. I think the way the iPhone does this is ingenious and assuming it actually works well it will set the standard for everyone else to meet.

“There’s no SDK, people can’t write their own applications.” This one I have to give some ground on. I think it is important that other applications be installable on the phone. I can understand Apple’s desire to maintain security and stability though. Recently one of my friends was over and crashed his brand new Treo just using the web browser. That kind of thing is unacceptable to me. An application should not cause the whole device to die. Ever.

I’m willing to cut Apple some slack here. I had a Sony P800 prior to the Nokia, and it would crash almost once a week. While that in itself was bad enough, when it crashed the back light would come on full strength and would not go out till you either reset it or the battery died. Granted the iPhone OS should go a long way towards preventing that, but Apple has got to be sure that rogue applications can’t kill the phone. If the iPhone is crash prone it’s going to fail. It has to be better than the competition for the price they are asking. All the cool features in the world won’t make it a success if people are wasting time rebooting it.

At their recent developers conference Apple did let people know they could develop applications for the iPhone using web applications written with AJAX. While this may not be optimal for some kinds of applications, I believe there is a huge opportunity for web based application providers here. I think we’re on the edge of a new generation of devices. Ones that truly do rely on the network to store and process information while the mobile device is merely used to display it. Since every iPhone is web ready and every iPhone will have a data plan, every iPhone is capable of taking advantage of these types of applications.

Are web enabled applications ideal? Maybe. There’s still an issue of corporate security and VPN access. Which brings me to the final point. “It’s not for business users.” Blackberry’s have become so ubiquitous that they are known as crackberry’s. Why? Email. People like to know when they get mail and that mail comes in automatically. Business users are addicted to them for this very reason. I am a business user, but I don’t have a crackberry. I prefer not to be that connected. I already have a cell phone, if my customers have to reach me they have my number and can just call.

I think Apple is looking at this seriously. The iPhone will have a full blown email client and the ability to connect to any standards based email service out there. So in essence it can do email. However the big question is, “Can it do secure corporate mail?” That has yet to be answered. However RIM, the makers of the Blackberry also provide software which lets Palm, Windows Mobile and Symbian based devices take advantage of the Blackberry service. Imagine if they released software for the iPhone too. An iPhone with Blackberry Connect would be a formidable opponent in not only the personal phone market, but also in the business phone market.

The final mark in the plus column; the iPhone uses iTunes to synchronize with the PC. Love it or hate it, I’ve not seen anything that synchronizes as beautifully or as easily as iTunes to iPods. It just works. I expect the iPhone will be the same. Simple and elegant.

The final mark in the minus column; the iPhone will only be available on AT&T’s network, reportedly for at least two years. Is this really a minus? I don’t know. I’m not an AT&T subscriber. But it could be the single most important aspect in whether the iPhone succeeds or fails. Apple is taking quite a risk in tying themselves to just one carrier. Granted they had to do it to get the changes they wanted, but it’s still an awfully big risk.