Excerpting from it:

The two places you note where WiFi is free — home and office — are the two places you are least likely to use your cellular phone. This is especially true in the U.S. where cellular is much more of a secondary device rather than in many other countries where it’s often a person’s primary phone.

Part of the reason that I noted free WiFi at home and office is that for me, my cell phone is my primary phone. In fact, it’s my only phone, for both work and personal use. So perhaps that magnifies its importance for me in the two places that I spend the most time, home and office (for me one and the same since I telecommute).

The other reason I noted WiFi support in general is that while I would love to use a device such as the Nokia N800 when I don’t feel like dragging out my laptop (reading news feeds on the couch in the evening, for instance), I simply am not interested in a non-cellular capable Internet tablet. iPhone’s 3.5 inch screen and Web browsing interface hold the possibility of solving my needs while maintaining my Nano’s music chops and my phone’s call and data access capabilities.

It will be interesting to see how many others agree with me.

I thought a great deal about the WiFi vs. EDGE vs. HSDPA question and I think that you might be somewhat mistaken, and that the commenter Tom was more on the mark.

The two places you note where WiFi is free — home and office — are the two places you are least likely to use your cellular phone. This is especially true in the U.S. where cellular is much more of a secondary device rather than in many other countries where it’s often a person’s primary phone.

In both home and office you’ll typically use your landline (or VoIP) phone for calls and your computer for data access.

It’s when you’re ** away ** from your home and office that you are mostly likely to use your cellular phone and willing to rack up per-minute and data charges.

Having WiFi is certainly better than not having it. And when I’m at a hotspot, where it’s free (I love Panera!) or I’m paying for it, I’ll gladly use WiFi rather than EDGE.

But for a (1) high-end phone that’s (2) designed for multimedia, including downloading graphics-laden Web pages, I’d be very interested to know why Apple decided it wasn’t worth incorporating HSDPA in the first U.S. version.

By not including HSDPA — and Cingular already offers it in many major markets — the iPhone is somewhat obsolete right out of the box.

I assume Apple will offer HSDPA for Europe in late 2007 — or it would be shooting itself in the foot (if not in a more sensitive area) — and will eventually offer HSDPA for the U.S. in 2008.

Of course, I want an iPhone, now, anyway!

I completely agree with you regarding cellular phone interfaces. Although they are getting better, they are much, much too difficult to use.

If Apple’s software can truly be as elegant, beautiful-looking and easy-to-use in the iPhone as in its computers — and NOT crash (you hear that, Treo?!) — the iPhone might indeed create a new standard.

There have been a lot of so-so and a few really great articles on iPhone in the week since it was launched. What follows are my favorite blog posts, articles, and videos covering iPhone in week one.
David Pogue published an early first pass in his &#8…

From this point of view Mr Vanjoki is quite right.

I agree on the fact that HSDPA is the way to go to for this kind of device. All major 3G operator are rolling out HSDPA and are having a close look at HSUPA that will eventually be made available in the near future.

From an end user perspective I am waiting to understand how the interaction between WiFi and GSM/Edge is goin to happen. Steve Jobs said that the iPhone will automaticall switch from GSM to WiFi… This does not really mean a lot… I think he was taling about data connection and also in this situation it is not a simple thing to implement.