Urgh!

Someone asked the question: Is there anyone out there that is just *indifferent* about apple?

Very few I would imagine. I don't buy Apple products because they look cool or I'm an iTard or iSheep and incapable of thinking for myself, as many here arrogantly and ignorantly state. I buy them and love them because they work as advertised, they make bloody awesome hardware and software which 'just works' and Apple have an eye for detail which no one - NO ONE - comes remotely close to matching. Anyone who hasn't used Apple products is hardly in a position to comment on them, let alone slag them or their users off.

My previous 3G phones were an SE and after that Motorola. I never used internet or email because it was so bloody hard to set up. From the impenetrable user manual to unhelpful/clueless telco to the indifferent manufacturer's support line it was always an exercise in futility. I almost never used the cameras because they took such shitty pictures. I rarely sent MMS messages because whether they arrived at their destination depended on the other person's carrier, their phone's implementation of MMS or indeed whether they could figure out how to even turn the feature on which once again required contacting the telco to set it up. UTTER - PAIN - IN - THE - ARSE. The other problems with MMS is there is no way of knowing which phones in your address book actually HAVE MMS support so bang goes a chunk of your messaging allowing for absolutely no benefit. I prefer sending images attached to emails.

Apple isn't perfect. They were the first to make USB useful, but were virtually the last to include USB2. I can't fathom how they took so bloody long to implement Cut, Copy, Paste - no doubt the result of some internal hissy-fits - but it looks like an elegant solution they have finally come up with. Beats the dicking around on the SE or Moto phone. The lack of landscape keyboard across all apps was an irritant but not a deal breaker. Why that wasn't implemented from the start is the bigger mystery here.

Tethering would be very useful, but see your data allowance quickly vanish if you're not careful! As stated by others and Apple, this function is dependant on your telco's attitude.

In the end, I knew the limitations the iPhone had at launch. I didn't get sucked into SJ's reality distortion field, I got fed up with crappy phones which had all the functions and none of the usability. I also knew that I could rely on Apple to release updates for free or at least very low cost, which gave me what was missing and much more, and wouldn't force me into an ever tightening spiral of totally unnecessary hardware upgrades. Just like owning a Mac actually.

So take your juvenile iTard insults back to the playground where they belong.