So what’s wrong with the iPhone? Two things:

1. One word: AT&T. I live and work in the greater Boston area, and AT&T’s network is pretty poor here and elsewhere. When I receive calls at my house, the iPhone rings only about 50% of the time. Sometimes calls don’t even register as missed. One of the first things I noticed after switching to BlackBerry on Verizon’s network is how many calls I was suddenly getting. And calls to my BlackBerry don’t drop off or become interference plagued anywhere near as frequently as those on my iPhone. Apple’s insistence on exclusivity with AT&T in the U.S. will keep me from going back to the iPhone until that changes.

So is this a regional problem? Not according to Consumer Reports, which has more than once ranked Verizon’s network as best or second best in most major markets throughout the U.S. Both in the Northeast and in my travels all around the country I have found this to be true. I was a Verizon Wireless customer before I bought my iPhone.

2. The virtual keyboard doesn’t work for me. People assume that it’s the lack of tactile feel when pressing fingers to glass, but I don’t think that tells the story. My frustration with the iPhone keyboard is that I cannot use my thumbs, but am instead reduced to stabbing with one finger, which is slower and less accurate. The worst part is that I frequently press the wrong keys while attempting to type without looking. On the BlackBerry, even though the keys are both much smaller and packed more tightly together, I’m able to “touch type” because of the little bumps that help you locate the keys by touch. The way I see this the problem is one of size. I could deal with lack of tactile feel on the iPhone if the virtual keycaps were larger so there were less chance of hitting the wrong key. Without those tactile bumps, me and my thumbs need larger targets.

That’s my short list of serious pet peeves with the iPhone. Were I to make a list of things I love about Apple’s smartphone, it would have at least a dozen items. But while it’s a short list negatives, they hard to get around: It’s not a reliable cell phone for calls, and I can’t really type emails and texts comfortably. The switch to the BlackBerry was a no-brainer for me.

Even so, I wouldn’t say I love the BlackBerry. The software syncing situation is terrible for Mac users. PocketMac is hopeless. (I’m about to try Missing Sync.) RIM needs to break down and write a true Desktop Manager for the Mac. I’m going to miss the iPhone’s seamless integration with all things Apple and Mac.

I also don’t like the BlackBerry’s over-reliance on email as a way to notify about voicemails and texts. I get so much voicemail that I need one place for that. I love the iPhone’s visual voicemail center and texting module (which uses more of an IM paradigm).

The BlackBerry Web browser and digital media features pale by comparison with those of the iPhone. I bought a 4GB SD card for the BlackBerry and still haven’t been able to successfully copy my songs and photos to RIM’s smartphone.

One BlackBerry Curve strength I hadn’t expected is that it’s noticeably lighter than the iPhone while being roughly comparable in size.

All in all, the iPhone is the most important smartphone released in the last three years. But Apple’s blind insistence on being exclusive with AT&T and Steve Job’s belief that buttons are bad — even keyboard buttons — makes the iPhone incomplete for me. I know other people who’ve gone back too. I’ll come back to the iPhone when and if Apple gets the message about the main things that a smartphone has to accomplish: phone calls and email.

If I could only get the BlackBerry keyboard and Verizon’s network on the iPhone, I’d have the best of both worlds.

For the last month I’ve been living with Apple’s diminutive MacBook Air as my sole production computer for all professional and personal use. My previous main Mac was a 2007 2.4GHz 4GB RAM MacBook Pro 17 with the highest resolution Apple offers in a notebook. So I went from one Apple portable extreme (highest resolution, most power, heaviest) to the other (smallest, lightest, least powerful, least memory, weakest video). There are a number of trade-offs, but the positive outweighs the negative.

It happened that late April through May is a slow travel period for me, so while I’ve attended local events offsite, I haven’t hit the road yet. But in a couple of weeks, I’ll be on a tour that includes D.C., NYC, Boston, and Miami. The east coast thang. I’ll give the MacBook Air a thorough travel test then. Once that’s complete, I’ll write a full long-term review of the MacBook Air on Computerworld.com.

My biggest single issue with the MacBook Air is something that you know going in: the size and resolution of the MacBook Air’s display. It measures 13.3-inches diagonally and has a maximum (native) resolution of 1280-by-800 pixels. The smaller size never troubles me on the road, where email and Web surfing are the main applications. I’m similarly unfazed by the MacBook Air’s small displays size because it’s connected to a 24-inch external LCD. But when I’m home, sitting on the sofa — where I sometimes spend hours researching, preparing PowerPoints, developing spreadsheets, juggling loads of documents, and writing — I feel the pinch of the small screen size. Like I said, I knew that going in, but the trade-off it’s not as bad as I expected.

It may be a case of just enough screen real estate. After years of using nothing but large-screen, high-res notebooks, I don’t have the “peering through a keyhole” feeling I sometimes got with pre-widescreen Windows notebooks (usually at 1024-by-768 resolution).

Another aspect that may help is the MBA display’s brightness and high contrast, both of which count a lot with me. What I’ve learned over the years is that display specs don’t matter. What matters is how it feels when you spend hours in front of it. The MacBook Air’s thin-film transistor LED technology creates the best notebook display I’ve spent that kind of time with. Though I haven’t spent the same amount of time with the newer MacBook Pro 15 models, the first to support the TFT LED displays, my guess is that they’re equally impressive.

All in all, I’ve adapted pretty well to the MacBook Air’s small display size. Even so, if Apple ever comes out with larger-screen MacBook Pro (such as a 15-inch or 17-inch) with the same incredible thinness, I’d probably break out the credit card the first week they were offered.

I’m also completely unperturbed by the on-paper lack of overall computing power that shows up clearly in the MacBook Air’s specs. My test unit has the 1.8GHz processor with the 64GB solid-state drive. Were I to spend my own money (or my company’s money), I’d get the 1.6GHz CPU and the 80GB 4,200-rpm conventional hard drive. For the things I use my main production machine 98% of the time, I don’t notice any loss of oomph. The 64GB drive is tight. In my ideal world, the MBA would come with 3GB or RAM and a 120GB hard drive, but so far I haven’t needed either.

The biggest problem I wasn’t expecting in the MacBook Air concerns the USB port. I was surprised that apparently Apple didn’t do the proper testing as part of its design work to ensure that virtually any USB device fits its one USB port. Or perhaps Apple just decided that form was more important than function. Either way, not only did I have to buy a new USB 3G EV-DO device for my company-supplied Verizon broadband wireless service, but when I paid extra for the smallest one (smallest in all three dimensions), it didn’t fit the MacBook Air’s USB port. Apple pointed out to me that the largest one Verizon offers has a fold out USB connector that does fit the MBA. But not only does that mean the darn thing flops around, it’s also massive at 3.6-inches long by 1.5-inches wide by .7-inches thick. It’s roughly half the size of deck of playing cards.

Bottom line, I think it’s a weakness in a computer using the name “Air” to refer to its wireless orientation that most USB air cards don’t fit it and it doesn’t have an ExpressCard port. Apple is quick to point out that every wireless broadband provider in the U.S. offers at least one air card that fits the MacBook Air, but to me, that’s not good enough.

Similarly, I have no issue with the MacBook’s optical SuperDrive being an external device, that’s a reasonable trade-off. But the fact that Apple’s device does not work through a USB hub and must be connected directly to the lone USB port is disappointing.

The biggest advantage I hadn’t fully appreciated — despite acknowledging it to be the killer feature of the MacBook Air from day one — is how freeing the small size and weight is. At work, I frequently just grab it and go to meetings. Since my business is Internet publishing, being able to refer to our Web site or those of competitors is a noticeable advantage to me. I haven’t even gotten to the travel part yet.

Stand by for my final Computerworld review in a month or a little more, which will address my travel experiences and also give details about my workarounds for some of the trade-offs I’ve experienced — as well as my final recommendation on the MacBook Air. In the meantime, I can tell you that I’m very much enjoying the research behind this evaluation.

At my Computerworld blog, I wrote recently that I’m changing my mind about the MacBook Air and embracing it for its elegance and usability as a travel computer. This contrasts with my three-month-old post in the days just before the MBA shipped in which, after a brief period of time with the early review unit Apple sent Computerworld, I took a harder line on the design compromises Apple made in creating the Air.

Check out my Computerworld blog for the details and my reasoning on the about-face. But if you want the bottom line, it boils down to this. I hope to acquire a MacBook Air as my “second” Mac for business use later this year.

Check out my takeaways about MacBook Air at my Computerworld blog.

Besides, I could use some friendly faces over there!

– Scot

My wife, Cyndy, got a nice BlackBerry at her job several months ago, and it quickly became her main phone. Neither of us were using our circa 2005 LG flip phones from Verizon. I’m a jeans-pocket guy for my cell phone, and the LG phone felt like a brick in my pocket. My older model CrackBerry was great for email, but a very poor cell phone. So bad that I found myself carrying both at times, something that’s patently ridiculous. So we dumped our Verizon phones, and I went to the Apple store in a nearby mall.

The most surprising thing for me was the purchase experience. When I bought my Verizon air card (WWAN service) at the nearby Verizon store back in May, I had to sign in, wait 15 minutes for a sales rep, politely listen to the upsell and then indicate that, no, I just wanted what I wanted, and wait while she first brought the wrong card and then the right one from the back room. Then I was ferried over to the cash register queue, where I had to wait another 15 minutes to check out. Then there was something strange in my account that involved 20 minutes of head-scratching and furrowed brows by two Verizon salespeople. Eventually, I was allowed to pay and walk away with my air card.

The Apple store was an entirely different experience. It took me longer to park my car at the mall than it did to walk out with my iPhone. The entire purchase experience lasted about five minutes. There are no decisions to make, accounts to check, or contracts to sign. All the details were taken care of by the iTunes-based iPhone activation software. You have to connect the iPhone to your Windows or Mac computer, download and install iTunes (unless you have it installed already, as all newer Macs do), and then follow the on-screen instructions. I had to remove the iPhone dock’s USB cable and plug it back in after I launched iTunes. Apple’s documentation on this process is, well, basic. But then again, you don’t really need it. The process of initializing activation required about 10 minutes, and after a little over 20 minutes of wait time, the activation was complete — including the transfer of the phone number from my old Verizon LG cell phone to the AT&T-powered iPhone.

Here’s hoping that the iPhone user experience transforms the mobile phone industry, which seems more intent on making profits than on ensuring that its customers enjoy buying and using its products.

Dazzling in Operation

Using the iPhone is an absolute joy. I’ve been using cell phones for about 15 years. The iPhone is the first mobile phone that I actually enjoy using. Things I never bothered with before — like texting — are suddenly easy and fun to do, whereas before they just seemed like a bother.

The Safari browser included on the iPhone delivers the best browsing experience I’ve ever seen on a mobile device. There’s no compromise other than the size of the screen. You can see the Web with either an emphasis on the width of the screen or length, and switching between the two is as simple as rotating the iPhone 90 degrees.

The iPhone is designed to use Wi-Fi wireless connections with the same straighforward operation of the Mac, which remembers your previous Wi-Fi connections by location and connects to them automatically. So even though AT&T’s EDGE (not 3G) network is a little slow at 100kbps, you won’t need it all that often unless you’re on the road. And it’s good enough for Web and email.

The iPhone works fine with Windows, but it’s especially well suited to Mac users who subscribe to Apple’s .mac synching and Web-based services. If you’re using iCal, iPhoto, iTunes, Safari, Apple Mail, and Apple’s Address Book already, you’ll be able to integrate your Mac with your iPhone very seamlessly. I’m big on the idea of having just one computer for both business and personal needs, so it’s also great that the iPhone bridges those two uses just as well as my MacBook Pro 17. For people like me, the iPhone is the smart phone that already has access to all my personal data and communications. Sure, the hardware may cost $400 plus $60 a month at minimum for the service, but it replaces the two phones that I previously had, and that’s worth paying extra for.

Less than two hours after I began, I had copied over all the songs from my old iPod, as well as my calendar entries, photos, bookmarks, and Web-based login info to the iPhone. I’d also set up voicemail and run through all the settings screens. All of this was so quick and easy to carry out that I soon began thinking of the iPhone as more of a portable extension of my Mac than a separate device.

The mobile phone functionality is also much better than I expected. Even though I live in an iffy AT&T service area, I haven’t had too much trouble with signal strength. One thing I’ve noticed is that AT&T’s signal strength varies a lot more than Verizon’s — even when you’re sitting in one place. Sound quality is surprisingly good on calls. I’ve dreamed about the visual voicemail feature for years. I detest the linearity of voicemail. I want to be able to pick and choose which messages to listen to right away and which ones to hold for later. The iPhone lets you do that.

Rounding out the features and programs are a camera, a YouTube access tool, a stocks reader, Google Maps, Yahoo Weather, a world clock/timer/alarm clock, a calculator, notes, and settings. The two best features of the iPhone, though, are the large touchscreen and the finger-gesture user interface, which is ahead of its time. Apple’s software and user interface design are superb.

The iPhone hardware is, like most Apple hardware, a model of industrial design and simplicity. The device is heavier than it looks, which makes it feel substantial. And it’s the perfect size to fit into your front pocket (but buy a screen protector for the touchscreen).

Sore Points

I’ve found very little to criticize in the iPhone. But there are some things. The software keyboard isn’t as bad as I’d feared. I don’t miss the tactile feel of actual keys. The audible click when you press a key helps a lot. The only problem with the keyboard is that the keys are too small for bigger fingers. That’s no surprise, really, given that the keys span the width of the tall-and-narrow screen orientation. Apple would have been smart to offer a portable external keyboard. The iPhone is good enough to be the only computer you travel with (at least, on shorter trips), but the onboard keyboard really holds it back.

Also, various screens in the iPhone software don’t actually offer a back or cancel button. For those times, Apple has a hardware-based Home button. But shouldn’t every screen have a way to back out?

And what idiot designed the iPhone’s small, recessed audio jack? Really, now, for all of Apple’s vaunted design prowess, if the iPhone doesn’t work with my Bose noise-canceling headphones — and it doesn’t as is — what good is it as an iPod replacement? I’m disgusted with the lack of attention to detail with this facet of the iPhone. Yes, I know, there are short cable-extension adapters (and less desirable rigid adapters) that solve the problem. But this seems like gratuitous aggravation on Apple’s part.

Various people around the Internet have suggested that Apple’s thinking was to add strain relief by recessing the jack, thereby limiting the leverage of the protruding connector. Theoretically, this would minimize damage to the system-card-mounted audio jack. But when you consider that the Apple Store is selling a more or less rigid Belkin adapter whose two-inch stand-off only exacerbates the strain-relief problem, what’s the point? For the record, my Bose headphones are the QuietComfort 2 model, purchased a few years back. They offer a standard, right-angle, 1/8-inch stereo male connector with built-in strain relief that’s been in use for many years. If I press on the male connector when it’s inserted in the iPhone jack, I get the sound through the headphones. So the design tolerance is just a tiny bit tight for my headphones. The actual problem is the size of the hole in the iPhone case. The difference in size might be attributed to something like a measurement in metric versus SAE for the iPhone case hole. Shame on Apple for not fully testing this in the marketplace.

But those drawbacks aside, I still love this thing. I’ve ordered a cable adapter for the audio jack. And I’m carrying my iPhone everywhere. For the first time in my life, I get all the hubbub about why cell phones can be cool. I guess it took Apple’s user-interface design to make it work for me. I’d probably have forgiven several additional minor peccadillos for that one primary advantage. Apple hit a homerun with the iPhone.

Update: November 11

More than a week after I wrote the review above, I’m happily listening to my iPhone as iPod, having purchased the 4-inch $7.95 adapter cable (link above) from RadTech. It works great.

My reliance on this phone matches no other mobile device I’ve ever owned. I will admit to having been something of a cell phone Luddite. I’ve owned a succession of mobile phones from Nokia, Motorola, LG, and RIM. Not a one of them inspired gadget lust for me. I viewed them more as annoying life complications than conveniences. Their controls, displays, signal strength, sound quality, and features were not worth the trouble. But only a few short weeks after picking up the iPhone, I already feel like I’m missing something when I forget to slip it in my pocket. I know many people will view this as mobile-phone-newbie-ish, but I don’t mind admitting that the iPhone has become my primary phone number. Ho-hum? Through almost 15 years of using cell phones, no other device has achieved that for me.

The iPhone’s touchscreen UI is brilliant and a big part of why this device is a success. It makes Web browsing on a tiny screen actually enjoyable. I find myself reading things very informally in a reclined position, almost like I would a paperback. At my daughter’s birthday party, a bunch of parents were standing around talking. One mentioned a great place to take the kids snow sledding. The place in town where families have done this for decades was recently bulldozed to expand the high school, so we’re all looking for another place to sled.

The parent in the know was having a hard time giving directions to the new sledding location. I felt a little self-conscious about whipping out my iPhone to access Google Maps and figure it out, but eventually I did just that. A few minutes later, a bunch of us huddled around the screen, where we figured out the location and could all see it on the map.

Along with all that’s truly fabulous about the iPhone, I’ve also come across some aspects that Apple should fix. The primary trade-off with this device is data entry. You can’t copy and paste, for example, a phone number from one place to another. In most operational modes, you can’t use the keyboard in the widescreen aspect; and in the vertical aspect, the keys are just too small to stab at them comfortably. The separation of basic keys like period, comma, and so forth onto a second keyboard palette is cumbersome. You can’t depress and hold down a key for an extra second or so to induce a capital letter as you can on Blackberries and other smart phones. I’d be OK if I could use two thumbs on this keyboard, but I can’t. I’m reduced to one-finger pointing. And even then, I’ve had to train myself to point slightly to the left of the key I’m pressing because otherwise I get the wrong key. Even when I do hit the right keys, the iPhone’s built-in type-completion text-changing “smart” behavior rears its ugly head wanting to “fix” things it hasn’t a clue about. The bottom line is that typing, if you can call it that, is not a great experience on the iPhone.

I realize that Apple’s iPhone engineers faced a significant challenge with the keyboard. The touchscreen-as-input-mechanism, display size, and overall form factor are collectively a huge design-limiting factor for the keyboard — but they are the heart of what makes the iPhone such a pleasure to use in all other aspects. I wouldn’t change anything about them. So the keyboard took it on the chin. It’s hard to imagine what Apple could do to make this better. But I hope that brainy engineers are working on this very point for future software upgrades and the iPhone Platinum, or whatever the next major revision to the iPhone will be called. Because if they can improve the keyboard experience, even somewhat, I’ll pay to get it.

The data-entry and keyboard weaknesses of the iPhone are magnified by the fact that Apple not surprisingly opted to use its existing Mac software set to support functions like address book, email, and so on. Most other cell phones come with proprietary software for managing some of these functions. For Mac users, it’s vastly preferable not to have separate software. But in their current renditions, the desktop Mac applications aren’t really designed to support the iPhone. As a result, Apple customized the iPhone software. For example, the iPhone’s contact favorites (the list of people you call frequently) must be managed on the phone itself. Similarly, some of the management and setup chores, such as configuring email account settings, also requires laborious use (with no copy and paste) of the not-so-ergonomic iPhone keyboard. There’s no option to configure some of these things while your iPhone is docked to your computer, and that’s something Apple should have fixed in Leopard.

The more I use the iPhone, the more I like it — but also the more glaring this keyboard/data-entry issue becomes.

Finally, for anyone who owns or intends to buy an iPhone, the most vulnerable part of this device is its touchscreen. There’s a wide and growing array of accessories for the iPhone, including many protective cases. For me, many of these add-ons take away from the perfect size and weight of the device, though.

As a compromise, to cut down on the possibility of scratches and abrasion, I highly recommend the Crystal Film Set, available from the Apple Store for about $15. This clear film is custom-shaped for the face of the iPhone, complete with holes for the speaker and Home button. The film affixes to the screen by clinging with static electricity, and it really does stay on well. There are two sides to this film. The slightly tacky side should be the one to make direct contact with the iPhone’s glass. It’s a little difficult to apply because dust and air bubbles are a little hard to control. A couple of tips: A piece of Scotch tape will lift up the film once its applied. Use another piece of tape on the tacky side to remove dust or small hairs. When you lay the film down, you’ll have fewer air bubbles if you roll it down from one edge of the glass to the other. Use a finger nail or soft plastic straight edge to direct bubbles to the edge of the screen. Don’t push too hard on the touchscreen.

When properly affixed, you’ll forget the Crystal Film is there. You really have to look close to notice it at all. And your screen has some added protection (although, this doesn’t mean you can now bang on it with a rock or something).

I made a backup of my Tiger installation just prior to performing the upgrade and was able to boot to the backup without difficulty. I also used Disk Utility (the Mac’s onboard disk integrity check and repair tool) to check both of the partitions on the computer’s hard drive. Everything checked out, so I went ahead with the upgrade.

As detailed earlier, I ran into the hanging blue screen after installation on the first restart that many other Leopard upgraders experienced. Many people had reported that the problem cleared up for them when they followed one of two methods for removing a Mac OS X customization utility by Unsanity called Application Performance Enhancement (APE). I didn’t have APE installed on my system, but it had been there and uninstalled with leave-behinds. I used Target disk mode to access the hard drive and remove the offending files. That didn’t solve my problem, so I decided to resort to my backup. So I removed the same offending files there just to be safe, wiped my boot volume, and copied my backup to the boot volume. During the copy process I got the error message that I didn’t have rights to copy three or four unnamed files — a message that made no real sense. And it was at that point that I knew I was in for it.

All attempts to reboot into the backup were met with a nasty kernel panic, and none of the boot option key commands worked. So I was out of luck, and I’ll never know for sure what caused the blue screen on that computer. But I did find and fix the probable cause of my backup problem. But first I had to successfully install Leopard.

I decided to perform a clean install of Leopard and then use Apple’s Migration Assistant utility to copy all my data and programs over to Leopard. I’ve used this tool before, and it works exceedingly well. It’s probably the best way for people to upgrade to Leopard, in fact. You get the benefits of a clean install without losing your data. If you’re a .mac subscriber, it’s completely painless, since .mac lets you transfer bookmarks, logins, calendars, address book, mail, and other things from one Mac to another. This time my Leopard installation went off without a hitch. I was able to import all my user data and programs from the flawed Tiger backup without causing any problems whatsoever. I was a happy camper. My only concern was why I had run into trouble.

I decided to run various diagnostics again, and an intersesting thing happened. When I ran Leopard’s version of Disk Utility, it quickly found and fixed a pretty large problem with the primary boot partition. I can only surmise that the disk problem created some sort of corruption with my backup set.

Footnote: The disk partition on this computer was created with an older version of iPartition by Coriolis Software, which is on my A-List of Mac Software. Some readers have written to tell me that iPartition has created problems on their hard drives similar to the one I experienced — although I’m not blaming iPartition for this problem. There are too many other possibilities. (The partition was created about a year ago.) But I am testing a product called Drive Genius that offers partitioning functionality, and I will report on that in the future.

If you read through the thread (as well as many others on other forums), you’ll find that various things are blamed for the problem, including an add-on customization utility called Application Enhancement (APE) by Unsanity.

The Apple Discussion thread offers a solution that involves booting in single-user mode, which requires you to hold down the S key while your Mac boots. Apparently that works for some people, but on my MacBook Pro 15, the only boot option that worked at all was Target Disk Mode (which lets you plug in a firewire cable and address the drive from another Mac as if it were an external drive).

This story and information about solving the problem is evolving over this weekend as I write this post. Some resources that may help people in this situation:

• Computerworld: Finger-pointing over Leopard blue screens heats up
• Computerworld: Some Leopard upgraders see ‘blue screen of death’
• Apple Help Document: “Blue screen” appears after installing Leopard and restarting
• Apple Help Doc: About the Archive and Install feature

My situation is complicated by the fact that there are permissions issues with my backup (taken right before the first attempted Leopard installation) that are making it difficult for me to restore that backup. I had no trouble booting to my backup after it was created. (I used SuperDuper to make the backup.)

My plan is to clean-install Leopard and use the Apple Migration tool to rebuild the computer’s environment. This is probably the smartest way to upgrade anyway. I opted not to do it to test Apple’s upgrade process.

While Apple appears to be laying the blame on Unsanity’s APE software, Unsanity says that’s not possible (see first Computerworld story listed above). So there’s more to this story likely yet to come.

As it happens, at one time I did have the APE product installed on my system, but I uninstalled it a long while back. But in examining the backup now, I have found APE leave-behinds. It’s not clear whether those files and folders are the cause of my problems, though. If I could properly restore my backup, I’d be able to test it. Perhaps I’ll get the chance later.

To be continued.

At Computerworld, we’ve put together the quintessential examination of the new Apple OS commonly referred to as Leopard. Check out: In Depth: Apple’s Leopard Leaps to New Heights. Be sure to check out the First Look at Leopard Image Gallery for a complete visual tour of the new OS, complete with a screencam of the Stacks feature.

I like Leopard. The new OS X has over 300 new features according to Apple (I didn’t stop to count them). There are literally oodles of small tweaks and changes. Things like, when you select Shut Down from the Apple menu, the new default countdown time is 60 seconds, not two minutes. (Yeah, I went for something pretty mundane that you probably haven’t read in a hundred other Leopard reviews.)

A new built-in Mac backup system, Time Machine, is probably the single best new aspect of OS X 10.5. The new virtual desktop functionality, called Spaces, is another noticeable addition. But to sum up Leopard, more than anything it’s a significant usability upgrade both to the operating system’s control surfaces and the bundled applications that come with it.

When you look at it on paper, though Steve Jobs might bristle at this, Leopard is very much like the kind of refinement Microsoft attempted with Vista. To get there, though, Microsoft had a lot farther to come.

I’ll have more to say about Leopard when I’ve had more time with it. The main purpose of this post is give you advice about whether to buy it.

Sooner or later, this is an upgrade most Mac OS X users will want. There’s enough benefit and improvement to pay the money. (Apple’s system requirements specify at least a PowerPC G4 processor running at 867MHz or faster. All Intel-based Macs support Leopard.)

But like any new operating system, this one may have cause some problems with application compatibility, drivers, and interface customization software, such as kernel extensions. (For example, I use DoubleCommand because I like having keyboard buttons on my MacBook Pro that delete both to the left and the right. Call me crazy. But once you work this way, it’s seems silly not to continue. DoubleCommand lets you reassign the functions of some keys.) I don’t expect that it will take very long for most actively updated software products to have updates for Leopard. Most software probably won’t need it anyway. Some hardware products might be a different story. I still find support for the Mac to be weak from many major printer manufacturers, for example.

For new Mac users, little issues with a new version of OS X are nothing like the annoyances and frustrations that some people face with a new version of Windows (Vista definitely included). But it’s a computer; a new operating system may cause some ripples here and there.

Most hard-core Mac users are either planning to line up at Apple stores on Friday evening or wishing they were. My advice is to hang back at least a couple of weeks or months. Make sure everything you use regularly is going to work after your upgrade. Tiger is a fine OS. You can’t even use Time Machine without connecting an external storage device (like a USB drive) or devoting a sizable partition on your hard drive. Don’t get me wrong, Time Machine is a great utility. Every OS should have this functionality. But it’s not really compelling OS content.

For some of us, half the fun is being among the first to use a new version of the Mac OS even if that means coming across some minor issues. If that describes you, there’s no reason not to go for it.

The week after the column appeared (after I returned from a vacation), I received a call from Apple acknowledging for the first time that, yes, it has an enterprise division headed by Al Shipp, senior vice president of enterprise sales. Only hitch was, Apple’s PR department wasn’t authorized to let me talk to Mr. Shipp or, in fact, anyone in Apple Enterprise.

Because Apple wasn’t talking, I reached out to Dale Frantz, CIO of Auto Warehousing Co., whose company was the focus of a case study about enterprise adoption of Apple servers, desktops, handhelds, and software in Mac Attack! An enterprise PC shop switches to Apple, July 16, 2007, Computerworld, by Julia King.

My interview with Frantz was far-ranging and fascinating. Not many CIOs these days have the brass to dump everything Windows-related and start all over again with Apple. He’s in the middle of doing it. He’s met with Al Shipp and has more than 20 business cards from the Seattle office of Apple Enterprise. His several-hundred-thousand-dollar overall deal with Apple comes with all the discounts, support, and engineering help that you’d expect from Microsoft. Apple is in every way doing exactly what I called for (except for selling enterprise-specific desktop hardware) in it dealings with Tacoma-based Auto Warehousing. So what gives?

I’m working on a follow-up story to the Enterprise Prize piece. In the meantime, though, I couldn’t resist passing along Frantz’s best guess as to why Apple has reached out to some medium-size businesses like his but isn’t making a major push to reel in larger enterprises. His belief is that Apple is quietly preparing to enter the enterprise market — and doesn’t want to tip its hand until it has the infrastructure in place to support enterprise customers. By infrastructure, Frantz means documentation, trained software engineers, and sales support.

Frantz also readily agreed with my analysis that, during this time when Vista is floundering a bit, Apple has an unusual window of opportunity — call it 18 months — to make some inroads with businesses of all sizes.

Apple has made a lot of smart moves over the past few years. Maybe the next one, the move to enterprise sales, has just yet to be played.

If you’re an enterprise IT manager whose company has recently moved to Apple, I’d like to hear from you. Drop me a line. (If you let me know it’s what you prefer, I will keep what you tell me confidential.)

Now, for the first time since the Mac was introduced in 1984, Apple has a real opportunity to play to win by focusing some of its resources on selling computers to the enterprise. Apple isn’t a large company, however, and it’s headed in an entirely different direction, transforming itself from a consumer computer company to a consumer electronics company. But is that truly the right move for Apple? It might be, but it’s not without risk. And it may mean passing up a golden opportunity.

Small Window
Don’t believe the siren song emanating from Redmond about how well Vista is doing. It’s not doing all that well. That doesn’t mean Microsoft is in trouble long term, because as things stand now, Vista (and its mildly improved derivatives) will eventually take over the Windows marketplace and wind up being the largest-selling version of Windows ever.

But there’s a brief period of time — a year, perhaps 18 months — in which a determined competitor with a better operating system and a more customer-focused strategy might be able to gain a toehold among enterprise computer buyers.

It’s not just the fact that Vista requires powerful hardware and has received a mixed reception that threatens Windows’ dominance. A small but growing number of IT pros have begun questioning Microsoft’s understanding of and commitment to their needs. The software giant’s increasingly self-serving policies, its obsession with software piracy, its inability to create a reliable desktop environment, and the constant need to upgrade software and hardware to keep pace with newer versions of Windows are wearing down the patience of its customer base.

That gives Apple an opening. And on the desktop, the Macintosh offers a combination that no other alternative does:

1. Mac OS X’s FreeBSD roots provide a level of reliability matched by no version of Windows and no previous version of the Mac. In other words, it’s nearly as reliable as Linux. The improved reliability and the fact that malware is targeted at Windows machines means reduced help desk calls and longer life spans for purchased Mac units.

2. On top of that, OS X has a rich user interface that is familiar to both Mac and Windows users, since Windows and the Mac use virtually all the same underlying UI techniques.

Groundwork Laid, but Where’s Apple Now?
Apple’s current opportunity in the enterprise marketplace is the direct result of its brilliant work in designing the best-of-breed desktop operating system back in 2001 when it introduced Mac OS X 10.0. More than six years and two versions of Microsoft’s Windows later, OS X is still the state of the art in desktop operating systems. OS X has also revitalized the Mac software marketplace (despite Apple’s poor showing in supporting independent software vendors).

Last year’s switch to an Intel-based architecture capped off a long series of moves by Apple — including aggressive and inexpensive updates of OS X, much better interoperability on Windows networks, and the release of the Boot Camp software for booting Windows on a Mac — that have prepared the company to make a run at the enterprise.

But since then, the focus has been on the iPhone and new iPods. Apple even pushed back the release of OS X 10.5 “Leopard” for that purpose. Cupertino shows no signs of pursuing a serious strategy to grow enterprise sales.

I tried going to the source to find out more. About three weeks ago, I put the question to Apple’s PR department: What is Apple’s strategy for selling computers to enterprises? The company has had every chance to answer that question; several very good PR people have contacted me, but they haven’t had anything of substance to say. The sum total of the direct response so far has been: “Look at the Business page on the Apple website.” The Apple Business page is aimed at small businesses, not enterprises. There’s nothing on this page of interest to corporate IT pros.

In order to succeed in the enterprise marketplace, Apple has to do several things. It needs an enterprise product line (a thought I’ll elaborate on in a moment). It needs enterprise pricing, including a volume-licensing strategy. It needs an enterprise sales force. It needs IT-oriented support policies and quality levels.

It’s not clear to me that Apple has the right stuff to sell to the corporate marketplace. Who knows, perhaps Steve Jobs is making the right decision in steering away from the enterprise. Maybe he knows Apple can’t succeed there because it just isn’t culturally suited to the business of selling to other businesses. But when it comes to building hardware for big business, there’s no doubt in my mind that Apple could succeed.

Enterprise Macs
Over the past year or two, a number of experts and pundits — some of whom were writing for Computerworld — have said that Apple’s existing product line would work fine as is for IT. But that’s just not the case. There are several issues with Mac hardware that keeps it from being ideal.

The MacBook Pro 15 and 17 models are too expensive by about $600 to $700 to compete with top-quality Windows notebooks, such as the Lenovo T60 series. Enterprises need to be able to purchase a MacBook Pro for around $1,900 with 2GB of RAM and a 120GB drive.

While it’s very easy to upgrade RAM in the MacBook Pros, it’s difficult to replace hard drives. To succeed in the enterprise, Apple needs to adopt user-removable hard drives. That makes it much easier for IT departments to troubleshoot and fix their users’ problems without having to crack the case of a notebook — something that’s a little touchy with the Macs.

The lack of a docking station option from Apple is also a serious drawback. It may sound minor, but docking stations are used heavily by companies that have adopted the no-desktop approach. Busy employees bring their notebooks home to work there, and also on the road. The docking station cuts down on cable connections, which, in turn, cuts down on help desk calls. At the very least, without the docking station, the 15-inch model needs a third USB port like the 17-inch MacBook Pro.

In some enterprises, a 13.3-inch-screen subnotebook has become the staple computer. Frequent travelers prefer the smaller size and heft of subnotebooks. Apple’s MacBook occupies this form factor, but the company designed it for students, not execs.

Like the MacBook Pro 15, it lacks ease of upgradeability for anything but RAM, it has only two USB ports, it doesn’t have a docking station, and the screen is small for work on spreadsheets, presentations, and other common business pursuits. Happily, the MacBook does support an external display at up to 1,920-by-1,200-pixel resolution. But back on the downside, the Chiclet-style keyboard isn’t appealing to touch typists.

Finally, the MacBook is thicker than the MacBook Pros. In order to build the small and light notebook that many enterprise users crave, Apple should start with the MacBook Pro case and trim it for a 13.3-inch display. It doesn’t have to be aluminum, but it does have to look upscale, and it needs the same flexibility and upgradeability I suggested for the MacBook Pro.

IT pros should be able to snag this 13.3-inch MacBook for business at around $1,400 with 2GB of RAM and a 100GB hard drive.

Not every business organization has settled on notebooks, and this is the area in which Apple is the weakest. To succeed in the corporate world, Apple needs to build an expandable/upgradeable desktop Mac that lets IT shops easily upgrade RAM, easily replace the original hard drive, add a second hard drive, upgrade the video, and have at least one free card slot or internal expansion area.

It should also come with a DVI port (and VGA adapter) for an external display. There’s no reason why the basic specs shouldn’t be similar to those of the iMac. But it needs to sell for $1,000 (without monitor) with 2GB of RAM and a 120MB hard drive.

In case you’re wondering, the iMac is not a good business machine. It’s barely upgradeable, and enterprises can often get more mileage out of LCD displays than they can out of desktop computers. Besides, if either the monitor or the computer needs to be sent in for service, the other piece must be sent too. The iMac is just not well designed for enterprise use.

Getting There?
By now you’ve probably gathered that there’s very little reason to suspect that Apple takes the enterprise market seriously. Just the fact that we really don’t know what Apple thinks about this is enough to say there’s no strategy. Business-oriented strategies aren’t secretive. That’s a consumer marketing thing.

To make it all happen, Apple would have to design and sell new business Macs with a pricing structure aimed at volume sales. It would have to make a stated commitment to take care of its enterprise customers.

In other words, Apple would need to stop looking at corporate computing as a dirty word. The aloofness Apple exudes as a consumer electronics company plays fine to that marketplace, but that doesn’t play well in the business-to-business space. IT customers want to be listened to and respected, and they want the company they buy from to offer innovative products and services that address their needs.

A public move by Apple in this direction would generate a ton of interest. Enterprise buyers stake their careers on their purchases. They need to feel the goodwill.

The truth is that Apple already has the goods, both in terms of the Intel-based architecture and the great operating system software. What it lacks is the hardware packaging and services that would make the Mac a lot more appealing to business users.

Even three years ago, it would have been totally laughable to write about the possibility of Apple being able to carve out a beachhead on the shores of the corporate marketplace. Now even dyed-in-the-wool Windows shops recognize that a small percentage of companies are moving this way, even if they think such companies are nuts.

It wouldn’t seem so crazy if Apple had some skin in the game. You’ve got to play to win.

• Mac vs. PC cost analysis: How does it all add up? (Computerworld)

It seemed to me that people who criticized this story missed the key points I was trying to get across:

1. This was a pure, hardware-based, speeds-and-feeds kind of comparison. I was comparing the hardware goods only, including CPU, chipset, RAM, video, display, hard-drive capacity and specs, ports and upgradeability, dimensions and weight, and so on. In other words, I was attempting to make an objective comparison that did not inject any evaluation about the hardware, anything at all about the software, or my personal experience with the operating systems and hardware involved. It was an on-paper comparison.

I did that purposely to lay the groundwork for further analysis about the value of Macs vs. Windows PCs. I started with the objective measures.

2. The main point I was trying to make is that when you compare Macs with comparably equipped Windows PCs, it may surprise you that, overall, Macs sometimes beat Windows PCs in the price/performance comparison. Sometimes Windows PCs do. Overall, there’s relative parity.

There is a time component to this kind of analysis. The Windows PC makers lagged behind Apple for a while on the CPU front, but with the release of the Santa Rosa platform (Intel’s marketing name is Centrino Pro), many are catching up again. The value meter may be tipping a bit toward Windows PCs now as a result. But this ebb and flow is a natural part of computer valuations. It never rests. Pricing is always in flux.

It’s definitely true that Apple Mac pricing has not always approached parity. I’ve made this comparison before. Macs have clearly been more expensive than Windows PCs in the distant past. But if you’re talking about name-brand Windows PCs from reputable manufacturers like Dell, HP, Toshiba, Acer, Gateway, Lenovo, and others, the out-the-door pricing is more or less on par.

There’s an important point of comparison you need to recognize to fully understand the logic of my position. For a direct comparison to be made, there has to be a Mac SKU that directly equates to the exact set of features *you* want. And that’s where we enter into the completely subjective realm and get away from intrinsic value. Just because you don’t want this or that small feature that the Mac has, doesn’t mean that everyone else doesn’t want it. And vice versa. So if your desire is a specific set of features that fits in between a specific Mac SKU and the way it can be configured, then some Windows PC somewhere may, in fact, be a better value — for you.

This point isn’t unique to computer sales. Buy a Honda automobile, for example, and you’ll find there are three or four models for any car type, and the only options are dealer installable. Like Honda, Apple has smartly positioned its specific models.

There’s also a corresponding point to be made: The Macintosh lineup consists of five model lines and 12 basic SKUs (or specific models), each of which offers additional configuration. There are three desktop model lines and two notebook model lines. When you look closely at these model lines, there are economy, middle-of-the-road, and high-end models. Macs are no longer just premium computers. Apple changed its stance on that markedly over the past 10 years. If you’re not that familiar with Macs, you have to open your mind, take a look at the different Mac models, and closely compare the specs to understand.

Dean Abanila, technology specialist at the Rhode Island School of Design, said it well:

“I work with more than a few students and faculty looking for computer buying advice. Many are making PC-to-Mac transitions. Your analysis is dead on. At least twice per week I spec out both Macs and PCs for folks. More often than not, the Mac is cheaper, and this has been the case for some time now. Before I start to sound like a Mac fan boy, let me say that I often recommend PCs, and will continue to do so. I support both platforms here at RISD. As I am sure you are aware, recommendations depend on the user’s goals.”

One last hardware point: I agree with those of you who wrote to say you’re with me on the comparison, but as purchasers of corporate microcomputing hardware they feel Apple doesn’t have a product that meets their needs. I’ve written about this in the past and am contemplating a Computerworld column on the point again. Apple has a huge opportunity right now with the pushback on Vista and the upswing in Mac sales to release a Mac designed for business.

At my company, where there are many new Mac users, the MacBook Pro 15 has become the standard. But that’s a pretty expensive computer for some companies to justify. I think the MacBook might be a solid alternative for some companies, and its pricing is more in line, or even advantageously priced, when compared with small-screen Windows notebooks from Lenovo and others. But there’s room for a MacBook business machine that has a better keyboard, a better-looking case, and probably some other minor tweaks. I also don’t think the iMac is a great desktop computer for business. I don’t like the integrated monitor from a support perspective.

There’s room for Apple do something here, but the real problem for Apple is that it doesn’t have a corporate sales channel to speak of. It’s a retail-oriented B2C company, not a B2B company. Some enterprises are ignoring those downsides, though. Computerworld’s cover story this week is about Tacoma, Wash.-based Auto Warehousing Co.’s decision to dump a major part of its IT infrastructure and PCs in favor of Apple servers and Macs. It does happen.

Software?
So much for the recap from last month. A lot of people have asked me to dive into the software comparison between Macs and PCs. Software needs, however, are far more variable than hardware needs. For example, some people are required to use Microsoft Word, Excel, and/or PowerPoint. They would be forced to either buy or get their companies to buy Microsoft Office 2004 for the Mac, which sells for $399 list.

I know that some of you believe that alternative office products negate the need for anyone to use Microsoft Office for the Mac. That simply isn’t true. There are interoperability issues with even the best alternative office apps. Trust me on this, some of us are required by our companies to use the Microsoft product.

On the other hand, some people don’t have those constraints. They might be very happy, indeed, with a product such as NeoOffice, the free, open-source Mac office suite based on the OpenOffice.org office suite.

So how do we figure this out? Do we tote up $400 or no? It’s much harder to generalize about software. It’s not easy to draw fair comparisons about software on a level playing field. I believe each person has to make his or her own assessment on the software front. Here’s are some factors I think you should weigh in considering the software side of analyzing Mac vs. PC costs:

1. There is plenty of software available from the Mac, both from established software houses and from individuals. Surprisingly, there are more products in some product categories than there are for Windows. For example, every time I turn around, I stumble across another project management tool for the Mac. There are more browsers for the Mac than there are for Windows. I don’t think Windows users realize just how many software product categories Microsoft has come to own. It’s true, though, that in some categories, there are only two or three Mac offerings. All in all, though, there is a very solid, rich spread of software makers creating Mac applications. As a long-time software reviewer, I’ve been surprised by the quality of these applications, too.

2. The $80 Parallels Desktop for Mac virtualization application lets you run Windows and Linux very seamlessly on your Intel Mac and switch between Mac and Windows, for example, with a simple keyboard command. It’s even possible to run Windows applications as if they’re running in the Mac interface, and to associate data files on the Mac with Windows applications. This extremely powerful tool literally gives you access to all your Windows applications on your Mac. Parallels is one of the best software utilities I’ve tested in years. It adds a huge chunk of software value to any Macintosh purchase. Apple’s free Boot Camp beta software is less convenient, but it offers the same ability to run Windows on your Mac. VMware’s forthcoming Fusion virtualization tool for the Mac will compete with Parallels.

3. You don’t need security software. OK, so I’m not one of those Mac users who chortles up his sleeve about security. I take it seriously. And I don’t think the Mac is inherently immune from security threats. But the real-world truth right now is that most security threats are aimed at criminal financial gain, and the Mac’s market share is just too small to be a cost-effective target. I mean, really, which would you pirate? The giant cargo ship with the gangplank resting on the dock, or the buttoned-up tugboat moored 100 yards offshore? Other than software to block spam, Mac users don’t need any of the security products that Windows users absolutely require — antivirus, anti-malware/spyware, identity-theft protection, anti-bot, and so on. (The Mac comes with built-in firewall software.) There’s definitely a cost savings because of this. And I suppose we could work up some numbers based on annual subscription fees and the need to upgrade to new versions of security products every year or two. This does add up over time, but it’s not really a big chunk of change.

To me, the far more important cost is the system overhead, user distraction, system instability, and the need for user troubleshooting that Windows security software entails.

Kenneth Burton, a technical director for a school system, emailed me with the same thought:

“What about the issue of spyware and antivirus software? One of the reasons I switched to a Mac at home two years ago was because of the hassle of cleaning up the computer after my 16-year-old son.”

Another reader, Rudy Wolf, agrees:

“Having just made the switch myself (we now own four Macs), I have to take exception to your [first article in this series]. You didn’t go far enough! Where is the discussion about the hours I used to spend messing with Symantec’s Norton utilities and Windows utilities to keep my Windows PCs running and optimized? I have personally gained one to two hours per week because I no longer have to maintain four Windows PCs. My MacPro is now almost two years old. In that time, I have not run one utility to defragment its disk, optimize the system, or upgrade software. The worst I’ve had to do is press the Enter key a few times when the computer upgraded itself (flawlessly each time). I don’t know about others, but getting back 50-100 hours a year is a savings that has to be factored into the equation.”

4. Software is cheap. Unless you’re talking AutoCAD, Photoshop, or Microsoft Office, software isn’t all that expensive, folks. Just two hours of my time spent working on a Windows PC problem is worth far more than the average cost of most software programs. Even if you’re retired, you have to factor in the time wasted wrestling with problems. The point I’m trying to make is that, OK, so you may have to back your Mac purchase with an investment in software, but you had to do the same thing with your Windows purchase at some point. It’s a cost of doing business. But more important, you can amortize the cost of the software against the time you’ll save not wrestling with stupid PC problems. There is a very real savings there that’s difficult to measure or quantify. That benefit is at once supremely valuable and difficult to quantify. The problems you face with Windows are very definitely a cost to using that operating system and hardware.

Remember the Yugo, a car introduced to the U.S. in 1984 whose main claim to fame was that it was incredibly cheap, woefully underpowered, and highly trouble prone? Yugos spent a lot of time in the shop. In considering the savings on the purchase price, Yugo buyers probably didn’t factor in lost personal time, aggravation, repair charges, and what they were paying for transportation when their cars were being repaired. This is the very definition of penny wise and pound foolish. I’m not saying that Windows is a Yugo, believe me. But reverse the picture: The Mac represents the most reliable vehicle you can buy (perhaps a Toyota?). There’s a hidden value to having far fewer problems than average. And a big segment of the computer-using market place doesn’t seem to want to acknowledge that.

No Lie: Impressive Reliability
The single most frustrating thing about being a Mac user is the disdain with which some Windows users view Macs. Apparently you’re not a real man or woman unless you’re suffering with everyone else.

The thing is, I don’t think Windows users (I know, I was one myself for many years) give much credence to the notion that Macs are far more trouble-free. Because it’s difficult to quantify it must therefore be false. It’s a subjective data point. As a long-time Windows author, reviewer, and expert, I know that I felt that I could solve any Windows problem (and probably could), and as a result, the Mac’s advantages held less benefit for me.

But I was wrong about that. The unexpected advantage I gained is that using my computer is more enjoyable. My concentration isn’t broken periodically by problems, updates, security pop-ups, and the like. I’m not thinking that I’m using a Mac. I’m thinking about what I’m using the computer to do — what I’m reading, writing, figuring, buying, watching, etc. The Mac becomes just so much chrome wrapping the data I’m interacting with. You’re not conscious of your television set while you’re watching it. That’s the way it is with a Mac. I found that much harder to achieve on Windows PCs, which are constantly drawing attention to themselves.

Another reader, James Sugrue, put it this way:

“I’ve been saying this for a while now. If you compare Apples to Apples (pardon the pun) then Macs are more often than not cheaper or at least price competitive. The thing your article didn’t touch on was the value you can’t quantify with Macs: Not having to worry about malware, not having to rebuild your machine every six months because the registry has gotten corrupted, or not having to deal with some dodgy driver that takes the system down. Your article didn’t describe the [overall pleasant] Mac experience.

“A recent switcher to the ‘Cult of the Mac,’ I’ve often wondered why I waited so long. I am a professional software developer, using Windows and Visual Studio, so I have a lot of Windows pain most days. I wish I could do all my dev work on the Mac. I see that being a major barrier to switching for most of my peers, even though there are great apps like Parallels and Boot Camp that could help. There’s a lot of ignorance about Apple for some reason among us technical types. A programmer at work said yesterday that he hated Apple. I asked whether he’d ever used a Mac. Nope.”

James, he’d probably hate chocolate if he hadn’t tried it, too.

Apple’s Mac mini is a Trojan horse (not the malware kind) whose entire purpose is to be low-cost enough to entice Mac-curious Windows users to give the Mac a try. The Mac mini is neither powerful nor portable. But it works just fine and will definitely give you the Mac experience. Or consider this: You can rent Macs. They’re not cheap, but it’s a lot less than buying even a new Mac mini.

You’re not going to believe it until you try it yourself. I didn’t.

I expect to write another installment on this subject. I hope to address Macintosh total cost of ownership (TCO), the average length of time people keep their Macs, and Mac resale values, among other things.

I welcome your input on this subject. What I value especially are fact-based arguments on either side of the question.

And then my buddy Ken Mingis placed the one he bought — after pledging with me that he would not buy one, I might add — in my hand. The universe tilted. I entered an altered state of being. And my mouth dropped open. I had to have one. Had to!

So 3G or not, I’d probably be buying one. If I could. But my wife, Cyndy, would probably make me sleep out back in the shed (along with the mystery mammal that’s living beneath it). And she’d have cause. Apple’s iPhone is darn expensive when you consider the two-year contract. And as you’ll see, I haven’t exactly been frugal lately.

But that the iPhone is expensive is about all I can say bad about it. It’s much smaller than it looks on TV, offers a lot of cool functionality, and it would fit better in my jeans pocket than either of my current cell phones. The screen is gorgeous, the operation intuitive, and while the keyboard might be an issue, the many applications have some ingenious innovations, in the style we’ve come to expect from Apple.

So here I sit dreaming up a reason to buy an iPhone next year. Maybe. In the meantime, if you’re waiting on 3G, maybe you should reconsider and go out and gitcha one now. This article from AnandTech, which, naturally, Ken (my wife calls him a bad influence) passed to me, offers realistic reasons why 3G may not be coming to an iPhone near you any time soon: No 3G on the iPhone, but Why? A Battery Life Analysis (AnandTech).

It’s not just the battery life either. According to AnandTech, quoting a Steve Jobs interview in the Wall Street Journal, the 3G circuitry might have made the iPhone bigger. That would not have been good. Not at all.

Since you can connect your iPhone wirelessly to any Wi-Fi network, surfing speed isn’t as much of a big deal. Even AT&T’s EDGE network isn’t terrible at 100kbps. For Web surfing and email, it’s OK. It’s definitely not up to snuff for YouTube though.

I know you’re probably growing a little indifferent to all the iPhone coverage, but this is truly good content. Check out Computerworld’s iPhone reviews and video. The seven-minute video, in particular, gives the best view on what it’s like to use the iPhone.

• iPhone Demo: The Video
• First look at the iPhone: Tomorrow’s technology today
• Hands on: Five things I love, and three I don’t, about the iPhone
• Macworld Review: Apple’s iPhone lives up to prelaunch buzz

The new 17-inch MacBook Pro also came with a surprising set of upgrades. Finally, the 17-inch model offers 1,920-by-1,200-pixel resolution. That had been a glaring omission in the previous MBP line. The new higher-resolution display is a $100 option. I vastly prefer this resolution for this size screen. It gives you a lot more screen real estate. Some people may find that some things are too tiny for comfort, but Apple does a much better job than Microsoft at creating UI structures that work well in multiple resolutions. So, for example, the tiny colored dots that let you close, minimize, and expand Finder and program windows appear to be the same size no matter what resolution you’re in. The only issue you may have is with the text of some Web pages. Safari has an optional toolbar button pair that lets you increase the font size of the current Web page up or down one notch. (The Command+ and Command- keyboard combos also handle this.) That was only the only adjustment I needed to make for my aging eyes.

In addition to the new high-res screen, the new MBP 17 has Intel’s faster Intel Santa Rosa chipset running a Core 2 Duo at 2.4GHz and an 800MHz frontside bus. The new MBP 17 comes with 2GB RAM standard (supporting up to 4GB of RAM), and there’s a $150 7,200-rpm 160GB hard drive option. Standard equipment delivers a 5,400-rpm 160GB drive, and there’s also an optional 4,200-rpm 250GB drive.

Graphics moved up a little to Nvidia’s GeForce 8600m GT graphics processing unit with 256MB of GDDR3 SDRAM. It offers dual display and video mirroring and external display at resolutions up to 2,560 by 1,600 pixels.

The new MBP 17 is identical in appearance, size, and weight to the previous generation. In fact, in all other details that I could find (see Apple’s spec page), it’s identical to the previous generation.

Computerworld’s Ken Mingis and I each bought this new machine, and we wound up configuring our purchases identically (with the glossy high-res screen and the 7,200-rpm 160GB hard drive). You can buy the new MBP 17 for $2,799 (same price as the previous generation). With these two upgrades, the list price increases to $3,049 (see Apple’s options configuration page). I paid a lot less because of one of the benefits of signing up to Apple’s ADC developer program, which costs over $500, is a decent discount on one Apple hardware purchase during the one-year membership period. My price was just over $2,400.

I followed Ken’s lead and tried a new RAM vendor to upgrade to 4GB of RAM. Large RAM upgrades under Windows often leave you wondering why you bothered, since there’s rarely more than a minor noticeable performance improvement. But this 2GB upgrade on the Santa Rosa MacBook Pro had a noticeably positive effect. It runs much faster after you double the RAM size.

Apple charges way too much for RAM upgrades. It’s cheaper to take Apple’s default 2GB of RAM on this computer and then purchase two 2GB RAM sticks, replacing the Apple RAM, than it is to buy the 4GB upgrade from Apple at the time of purchase.

Ken and I each bought two 2GB DIMMs for the new MacBook Pros for $215 from OtherWorldComputing.com. Unfortunately, the price has gone up to $228.50 since then. But it’s still a pretty good deal. Other World Computing also offers a $50 rebate on your original 2GB of Apple RAM if you fill out a form and ship your RAM to them.

Another low-cost RAM vendor with which Mr. Mingis and I have had good luck is Data Memory Systems. DMS’s version of this 4GB kit is $238, but without a rebate option.

The OWC DIMMs have run perfectly on both new Macs.

After several weeks using the new MacBook Pro 17 as my main computer, it’s hard to imagine a better notebook computer. It is the best notebook of any operating system that I have ever used. There are no tiny miscues or fit and finish issues. Other than the keyboard, which isn’t on par with that of a Lenovo notebook, I have no wish list at all. The only nit I can find with this computer is that it runs hotter than the 2.33GHz Core 2 Duo MacBook Pro 17 it replaces. In particular, whenever I launch Parallels running Windows XP, this Mac forces me to find some sort of large magazine or pillow to place on my lap as a heat buffer. Otherwise, my legs start baking. My guess is that the 2.4GHz MacBook Pro 15 gets even hotter because the case is smaller and can’t dissipate the heat as well.

For excellent additional information of the new MacBook Pro 17, check out the Computerworld review by Ken Mingis: First look: The new MacBook Pro 17, now with hi-res screen.