My PDA has a phone in it. The interface is clean, simple and familiar. It does everything the Iphone does, and a HUGE list of things the iphone will NEVER be able to do.

A HUGE list of things the iPhone will NEVER do? Careful there. Many people have had to eat crow after using the "never" word. With iPhone's extensibility via 3rd party applications, it's truly hard to define the boundaries of the iPhone. Sure, for the time being, Apple has locked out certain features from 3rd party developers, but remember, in the beginning, the only way to get 3rd party apps on the iPhone was to jailbreak it. What happened? Apple opened the doors to developers. Jailbreaking still happens, but in all honestly, I hear less talk about jailbreaking from colleagues now than I did before Apple allowed 3rd parties to play in Apple's sandbox. I'm sure as time pushes on, we'll see the iPhone grow and mature in ways many people NEVER thought possible.

It's cute, but it's a really long way away from being a smart phone. There is no office software, there is no remote desktop, there is a pretty interface though. That is nice, but it's a very long way away from matching the feature set of my 6 year old phone.

As one other poster mentioned, office software on a PDA is fairly limiting. The iPhone will let you view Word, Excel and PDF documents. That's typically enough for most users - the ability to view. So you can't make a direct change - big whoop. Besides, who wants to work an excel spreadsheet on a 3" screen anyway? Albeit, with the iPhone's zoom ability, it can be done, but I don't know that I'd ever go there myself.

As for Remote Desktop - You are DEAD WRONG. I've been using RDP on the iPhone for months now. I connect to my corporate servers through VPN and I can establish an RDC connection to any (Windows) server/desktop I have access to. I also have SSH/Telnet abilities for accessing my Linux/UNIX servers too. And of course, there's also a VNC client for accessing anything else (Windows, Mac, Linux, etc.). I even have a green-screen terminal app for accessing IBM AS/400's (just in case). No my friend - you are sorely mistaken - the iPhone has many methods for remote connectivity support.

So what makes the Iphone so awesome? Nothing. What makes it popular is the apple mystic and excellent marketing, but there is a reason serious business users shy away from it.

Maybe to some extent this is true. But I don't believe that it's the final answer. I am not an Apple fanboy myself - well, maybe a little. Honestly though - prior to OS X, you couldn't pay me to use a Mac - I HATED Macs with a passion. I thought the interface was butt ugly to look at, the OS felt really chaotic, un-structured and clumsy to me and I felt encumbered by it. I was also a DOS/Windows junkie until OS X hit the scene with a touch of UNIX/Linux for flavor. Nowadays, my home-office has Windows to my left, OS X in the center and Linux to my right. My Mac is my primary machine of choice - it's best of both worlds. My Windows box is there for "compatibility" purposes only. The Linux box is there for me to do whatever with. So far, none of this has anything to do with Apple's mystique or marketing. It has to do with the fact that I like products that work well and get the job done while accommodating my personal style.

You are right however, business user's have not truly embraced the iPhone -- yet. The Blackberry has the dominant footprint - with it's backend server technology, integration into the corporate world, etc. The iPhone was a late adopter of MS Exchange integration. And for all the "effort" Apple has put into the iPhone's "speakerphone" abilities, the iPhone still sucks as a speakerphone. The other caveat is the ability to manage several blackberries (access, right's management, etc.) through the blackberry server. At this point in time, the iPhone has no such capabilities (that I am aware of). Technically, if you wanted to do something similar, you would have to of course have all iPhone user's MAC addresses and limited wireless access on company premises in order to monitor and manage iPhone network access. Even then, it's still fairly out in the open. Apple does have a way to go to catch up with Blackberry on this front - assuming Apple ever decides to go down that road.

Anyway - I think we can easily say, the iPhone is here to stay. Blackberry dominates the corporate/business market because of the Blackberry infrastructure. iPhone dominates the end-user market because of the elegance and ease of use factor and it's extensibility. There are trade off's with everything in life. It all depends on what you want to do. For me, the iPhone suits my needs in spades and is and has been hands-down (IMHO), the best PDA/Smartphone I've ever owned.

I really have to agree with this. I was previously using a Motorola V551 prior to the purchase of the iPhone. I was fairly comfortable with the interface, albeit, the only thing I truly ever did with the phone was send/receive calls and text messages and on rare occasion, I used the limited calculator when grocery shopping.

Once I purchased my iPhone, I began realizing that I hadn't purchased a phone so much as I had purchased a 3" palm-sized computing platform. To this day, the iPhone is my personal organizer through the use of the calendar app. I've replaced the default calculator with a snazzy programmer's calculator. Since I'm a the non-3G iPhone, GPS means nothing to me at this time, but the map app and it's locate me function have served me well. After adding BeeJive, I now have the full range of IM tools I need. Having Webster's Dictionary and American Heritage dictionary onboard rim my web use way day - but wait - I do use the onboard Safari web browser extensively. The camera, which everyone complains about - well, it is what it is and it works fine for my needs. And of course, the contacts/address book is a gem in itself.

On a more technical side, with the various email connectivity methods, VPN, and 3rd party apps that allow me to SSH/Telnet, RDP, BNC, and ping, I have some decent support tools in the palm of my hand no matter where I may be geographically located.

Of course, the iPod functionality is a nice thing too. Oh, and I almost forgot to mention - it's a phone too.

However, the best feature (for me) has been the interface. The moment I first laid my hands on it, I found it extremely intuitive. So much in fact, that when I recently tried to assist my wife with her Nokia and I felt like pulling my hair out after about 2 minutes of trying to navigate through menu after menu via a smaller-than-a-chicklet sized keypad. After using an iPhone, I'm not sure I could ever (comfortably) go back to a regular cell phone.