Chiny,

I'm not an experienced user of fancy phones. I've had a Treo (several, they kept breaking--this is explains why I no longer have a Treo), and a cheapo motorola. I've never even set them up for speed dialing, so I'm not really a phone power user. To me, the fact you could get through your contact list with a Treo and dial a number in 3 + a couple button presses (first initial, second initial, up or down a couple times, then dial) was zippy to me.. Anyway, with that disclaimer out of the way:

I think the iphone has a relatively slow interface for getting to your contacts. When I turn on the phone, there's a good chance that the last thing I was doing on it was NOT using it as a phone, so I will have to push the menu button. Then I have to tap "phone", then I will most likely need to tap either keypad or contacts. Keypad works as well as you could hope. It is just a keypad after all. If I am calling someone in my addressbook, I tap Contact, obviously. The contact list is somewhat tedious to navigate. You can tap these TINY letters on the right-hand side to scroll quickly, or just scroll normally. The iPhone's interface is wonderful in terms of its skill in resolving the stubby-finger versus crystal-clear, tiny text interfaces...that said, it's imprecise. You'll never dial the wrong person by mistake, but you may have to spend extra seconds here and there adjusting your position to get the tap you need.

AFAIK, the mic does nothing right now except let you talk into it on a phone call.

For SMS's, the keyboard is useable, but I don't think it's as quick as a physical keyboard like you would find on a Blackberry or Treo.

I don't want to call the phone stuff "tacked on", because it is pretty thoughtful and it looks like they put a good deal of thought into it, however one gets the impression that the designers and engineers were most proud of the iPhone's more computer-like capabilities. The iPod, Safari.. The "Desktop" and overall UI.

While the contact list itself is little klugy, integration with other apps is good. Pretty much anywhere you see a phone number (except Safari, I think), you can tap it to call it.

Integration overall is very good, but it's finger-centric. If you are holding the phone in one hand, and using your other hand's index finger to interact with it...that's where this phone shines. It doesn't seem good for one-handed use, and I'd even say its thin, gripless, uniform edges seem designed more for the eye than for the hand that holds it up to your ear. Sometimes I fear it might slip. To make sure it doesn't, I have my pinky awkwardly placed underneath it as a safety measure.

I don't know if that's unbiased or not, but that's some critical opinion there for ya. I still think that the device is incredibly appealing, but more in a flashy "jack of all trades" sort of way. I don't think it beats the blackberry at messaging. Interestingly, it DOES beat a video ipod at video...assuming you can live with only 4 or 8 gigs. (3 or 7 after the OS footprint)

I'd say it's an extremely impressive first outing. And of course, the software is upgradeable, so I'm excited to see what they do with it.