iPhone released: discouraged as I am?
KirinDave: Here's the thing. I think most of us here are rational enough to not degrade into raw fanboy-ism (is that asking too much?). If Apple didn't keep knocking the ball out of the park while simultaneously facing a competition that seems utterly incapable of making an adequate response, we wouldn't be having this conversation. Sometimes I wonder if Apple's real brilliance is in carefully choosing which segments of a market to attack... perhaps they have an incompetence detector?It's not like open source projects like OpenMoko haven't had a chance to make an amazing phone. Indeed, I'm frustrated because before the iPhone announcement, the OpenMoko looked like a top-of-the-line sort of gadget, and then Apple leapfrogs all their efforts on the first try. But I want a great phone, so now I'm stuck with AT&T and buying an iPhone.If these independent "great products" want to compete, perhaps they need to start forming explicit alliances with other service providers to form an integrated solution that people want. It's very clear that at least the Apple-buying public wants that kind of integration.