Sure, we just saw Steve Jobs proudly launch the Apple iPhone, and despite no 3G for fast downloads or videocalls, no mention of over-the-air iTunes downloads and no mention of a removable battery, I have to agree that it’s one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen. But until you can buy one in stores, there is no Apple iPhone.

Nevertheless, the iPhone, for all its incredible desirability and undeniable technological innovation is simply not available to purchase. Anyone wanting one will need to wait at least 6 months before it arrives on store shelves in the US – unless Apple has something up their sleeve so that it launches earlier.

Europe? Q4 this year. Asia and Australia? Forget about the phone until 2008.

By the end of the year, 8Gb will seem small – heck it seems small now, and I know what I’m talking about as I have an 8Gb iPod Nano 2nd-gen, and with the growing number of 3.5G HSDPA providers out there offering download speeds of up to 1.5Mbps (with 3.6Mbps, 7.2Mbps and 14.4Mbps download speeds coming to Australia by March this year, according to the national telco, Telstra), Apple’s iPhone will have likely gone through at least one update by the time people in Australasia get the see the phone in stores.

Already, the speculation has started as to what we might see in the iPhone 2. 3G or 3.5G, video calls, at least 16Gb of flash storage, the potential for some kind of slick removable battery, an FM radio, and endless third party accessories including those plastic sleeves to prevent the screen from getting scratched.

But there’s no doubt that Steve Jobs and his technicians are already hard at work on the iPhone’s successor. They likely have a roadmap that would blow us all away, if we were ever able to see it beforehand.

Questions abound on what OS X in the phone really means. Wouldn’t it be cool if the iPod’s video out let you plug the iPhone into an LCD monitor, and using Bluetooth, connect up a wireless keyboard and mouse so you could use the iPhone as the ultimate Mac Mini?

Sadly, the Mac OS X in the iPhone is unlikely to allow you to do that, as it has probably been somehow simplified to make it friendlier to the phone environment.

Don’t get me wrong about the iPhone. I love it. I want one. I want one NOW. The voicemail feature alone is worth the price of entry for me – it’s amazing that no-one has ever thought of letting you do that right on your phone before.

Steve Jobs has one again pulled the rabbit out of the hat and has released a product that redefines digital mobility, connectivity and communications. It’s a masterstroke that has set the cat amongst the pigeons in the cell phone industry, and will hopefully spur Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Samsung, Motorola, Blackberry, Microsoft and others to really ramp up their R&D and launch some amazing designs of their own before 2007 is over.

But back to the iPhone. Unless I can get myself to the US in June 2007 to buy one, and then figure out how to bypass what will surely be a network lock to the Cingular network so I can use it in Australia…

There is no iPhone. Yet.
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