I'm very intrigued about the impending iPhone release from Apple. I think they've gotten it right, it's being dubbed as a phone on your music player. Most people with music capabilities on their current phones can be described as a music player on their phone. One device that does almost everything typically has been a huge failure, but I think Apple has a lot going for them.

Here are some of the reasons I'm interested, and possibly will get an iPhone close to it's release (if possible without standing in line, etc. etc.).

• iPod - Movies and Music.

Sure, it's only 8GB, blah blah blah. I've only got about 15 GB on my current 30GB iPod. I'm ok with keeping my favorite music, photos, and movies on the device. It's not like I'll be crossing the Sahara with this thing. One very nice feature I've read about is letterboxed movies, if you prefer to see them fill the screen, just double tap the screen and the iPhone will resample the video on the fly. Pretty slick.

• User Interface and Design

I love the fact there there are a minimal amount of buttons. The UI can adapt to almost any situation due to the touch screen interface that Apple has developed. The designers they have really do a great job in bringing revolutionary products and interfaces to the market.

• Email, Web, and Voicemail

Sure, it's NOT 3G, but AT & T is promising to beef up their Edge network (hmm can't seem to find the supporting link for this at the current moment) to support faster data transfer times. A full version of Safari on the phone will be sweet. And now with Safari support for Windows, we have a great sandbox to develop AJAX and other web technologies targeted for the iPhone. (And we can test it out on our Windows dev boxes too...) Shiny.

The voicemail is a first as well. Seven voicemails? Skip to the sixth without having to listen to the other five!

Recently I've setup all my email to go through Gmail. I'm very hopeful that Gmail will develop some sort of push technology to address instant email and synching for the iPhone and other mobile device users.... it's got to be coming... right?

• Technology

I'm a total geek. Just the small touches they've added to this phone, like the fact that when you talk on it, the screen turns off to save battery life, or that when you tilt it to landscape it in turn adjusts the screen to that orientation is wonderful. I recall way back in the day having a Casiopeia running Windows CE and to adjust the screen sizes and orientations, required a 3rd party software package I had to pay for!

Now I'm really not an Apple FanBoy, I swear. It took me a long time just to get an iPod. There are several things I'm not excited about in this phone, or things that could be serious deal breakers for me.

• No support for 3G, what the hell? We're on the crappy AT & T Edge network that they are supposedly revamping.
• The soft keyboard is kind of scary from what I've heard so far. If I can't type an email, or web addresses, what's the point? I'll be trying this out in the store for sure before I drop that much cash.
• The hype. Can you imagine how hard it's going to be to get one of these on June 29, @ 6 PM? Let me just say this, there is no way I'm camping out for this thing. I might consider going a few hours early to 'wait'... but I'm not a huge stand in line, or crowd kind of person. So is this going to be like a 6 month Xbox wait?
• No telenav, or GPS integration?
• The price. Let's face it, very expensive. But I supposed if you have a $300 ipod, and a $150 cell phone, plus something to browse the web or do email, or whatever, you're getting close to their price point. And early adopters just pay to be in the game at the beginning.

So with that all said, I'll be there at some point, hands on, considering a purchase. If the rumors of 3-4 million units at launch are true, it should not be too bad. I kind of doubt that there will be that many... I can see Apple wanting to create a huge demand by introducing a small amount of units into the market.

Discuss, tell me what you're impressions are.