Google on Wednesday said it has seen 50 times more search requests coming from Apple iPhones than any other mobile handset -- a revelation so astonishing that the company originally suspected it had made an error culling its own data.

Holy Toledo! - Google iPhone usage shocks search giant!

...has seen 50 times more search requests...!

So let me see if I understand this.  Build a beautiful device that makes it trivially easy to access the internet and search for what you want and people use it...makes sense to me.

Apple removed the user interface barrier from between the user and what the user wants to do.  Because I can access the internet from my phone, but it is a bit painful.  I mean it ain't bad, but it ain't good.

And just for the record I am very happy with my phone.

All open API's...meaning, you Mr. Phone company can take this platform and use it on your technology.  Freaking cool.

And as an aside doesn't Sergey Brin have a weird eye thing going on?  Freaky.  Is he trying to compel us with his evil mind-powers?

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
Arthur C. Clarke, "Profiles of The Future", 1961 (Clarke's third law)

And by failure I mean unmitigated success.

But I do also mean failure as viewed through our Ray Kurzweil jaded shades. We expect so much out of our technology these days that a device as radical and beautiful and exemplary as the iPhone is still seen as incomplete.

Comparison

Compare it to the most radical phones of the 1990s. I'd argue it wasn't even a phone that was radical back then, but the Palm Pilot, a PDA. The Palm Pilot experimented with the user interface...how would someone work with a handheld effectively.

Compare it to the phones of the mid 1980s. Just having a mobile car phone by itself was the cool thing. Remember the bricks? Remember the mini-briefcase sized phones? 'nuff said.

Why do we not laud it for what it is

What we have here is accelerating returns personified. We are so human that we can't see what has happened. Our perception of the future is constrained by our living in the present.

The iPhone is not perfect.

It does not do absolutely evertyhing in a perfect way. It should be on a fast network. It should have more memory. It should allow us to change to competing phone networks.

What it does do is let us see what can be done, what should be done, and what will be done.

Comparing a current version of the iPod against the earlier versions gives us insight into what changes we might have in store from Apple vis a vis the iPhone. 2-3 years from now we'll be 2-3 versions in and the iPhone will have plugged its remaining product holes.

You will need to be ready for the future because it is on the way here whether you want it or not.

So...techRivet doesn't really review gadgets all that much, it's not the raison d’être of the site.  But even we here at the vast world headquarters of techRivet.com get sucked into the hype.

For the video itself techRivet would like to send you over to one of our online partners: [Gadget Grid]

For it appears that the truth may live up to the hype and let me tell you that would be amazing.  Walt Mossberg the mavin for all gadget-dom has come out with a largely lauditory review.

The two worries about the device prior to launch were:

1. The screen-as-keyboard
2. The slower network

Walt says the keyboard is a "non-issue".  Check off one.

He then says that the slower network may be a problem as you move about outside, but inside the iPhone seemlessly picks up wifi networks.  Half-check.

But the statement that got me was this one:
"It is certainly the most beautiful and the most radical smart-phone or handheld computer I have ever tested!" - Walt Mossberg

I for one welcome our new iPhone overlords

I have believed from the day it was announced that REGARDLESS of its actual real world capabilities the iPhone was going to be a smash.  There was no way it wouldn't be.  But now it appears that Apple has done it and is poised, poised only mind you, to do to the cell phone market what it did to the mp3 player market.

It will be fascinating to see what the world of the phone will look like in 5 years.

...and no I am not participating in link whoredom, how dare you say so.