iPhone - a first (proxy) review after 24 hours immersion

Following on from our blog on the strategic implications of the iPhone, a San Fran based friend has emailed over this review he did earlier......sitting in the UK one can only envy hugely

Overall assessment..."this thing is seriously COOL"

Its worth transcribing his post in full, if only to wallow in the delight of my own misery of not having one

For background, I'm a classic gadget freak. I've had many Macs and PCs, Treos, Palms, Blackberrys - including the Pearl, and many different mobiles over the years. I've been eagerly awaiting the iPhone as my Pearl replacement. I was primarily interested in carrying my phone, Music, podcasts, DVD Rips, iCal, and Gmail with me during the day. Here are my initial thoughts:

- Fantastic, beautiful, elegant design. Very responsive UI in all apps.
- Perhaps I was lucky; moving my AT&T BB contract took ~5 mins
- Had an "invalid SIM" error 30 minutes after activation!? Powered down and reseated SIM to fix. No misbehavior since...
- Typing is initially awkward, but I'm learning quickly. 2 Thumbs will work!
- Email really needs "mark all as read" and "delete marked" commands
- Has a 2 MP camera, but only emails 640x480 resized images.
- Video camera would be great (version 2 I guess)
- Camera image quality (after fetching via iPhoto) is on par with others
- No Vibrate first, then ring. Vibrates and rings simultaneously.
- Silent/Ring switch is very useful.
- No "message waiting" LED (like blackberries have)
- Seamless, excellent WiFi
- Phone is slightly worse than Pearl at holding weak signals. My Pearl is always solid at the house even with our weak signal; the iPhone seems to oscillate from 1 to 4 bars, and drops some calls. The difference is pretty small, however. Might be due to WiFi, bluetooth, etc all running. Will test.
- Audio and Video performance is outstanding, as is the UI!
- 320x DVD rips look great (and save space). I wouldn't bother with 640x...
- Earbuds, mic, and integrated "spongy switch" work great.
- Should have (at least) included a slip case!
- Safari is the best smartphone browsing experience by a wide margin.
- Where is text iChat?!!!!
- SMS interface is a very nice iChat imitation.
- No ability to add "name, address, home phone" to welcome screen. If an honest person finds your iPhone, it's not easy to identify the owner (I put a label on the back, which really detracts...)
- Can't modify sounds used for events other than phone ringer (e.g. - mail), but can turn them off at least.
- Map app is outstanding!!! Useful as yellow pages (like Calamari ad), Used it twice today to locate a store and restaurant.
- Live traffic is cool!
- Widgets are great! We need more...
- Needs a file manager/"disk mode" (I've heard it's coming...)
- Bluetooth in my Lexus 400h worked fine, incoming and outgoing

My overall rating is a 9.5/10. The newness will wear off, but objectively, I really believe this device is a tremendous leap forward! It's the first unified device I've used that really feels truly integrated, and I suspect it will only get better with future software/firmware releases. It is really, really, well thought out, and in case you missed it before, it looks like a piece of art! Apple's competitors better crank up their R&D in a hurry...

The only conciliation is that when (if?) we get ours they allegedly will have 3G, not 2G