I (Heart) the iPhone

I admit it -- I am in the tank for the iPhone. I had unrealistic expectations of it before its release and now that I have used it a bit (through friends and the Apple Store), I like it even more than expected. It delivers such incredible usability and is so easy to figure out. Plus, it has revolutionized the smartphone market and means that the mobile Web is no longer a distant fantasy.

Still, I can't imagine even the folks at Apple could have projected some of the usage numbers in a recent study by M:Metrics, as published in The New York Times. The most overwhelming stat? Nearly 85% of iPhone users access the mobile Web, compared to 13% of the overall mobile market in the U.S. and 58% of total smartphone owners.

More than anything else, the iPhone has kept the hardware manufacturers and the cellular companies on edge because they know if they don't do something (and quick), they will lose out on this growing market. Too often, these companies hold off on putting things out on the market because they can't figure out the right way to monetize things. That's a bad thing for us. The iPhone has kept them from f-ing around too much.