My niece showed up with an iT. She liked it and checked her mail on it a lot. I really did not think that much of them until I saw hers.

If it were me, I would get a used iPod (any store that sells/trades used games will have them) and wait for the iPhone. But then I would not know what to do without all the music I own available to me at any time, no matter where I am.

But the iT is certainly a nice little thing.

Unless you're sure of getting a wifi signal where you need it, I'd wait for the iPhone.

you can do all the apps on the iPod touch. The location based apps have to guess your location based on wifi hotspot info and not gps and/or cell towers.

At the end of the day the touch is just an iPhone without the phone.

I use my iPhone a lot and love the faster network when I can get it ( more bars in more places my ass AT&T ). Since I often browse the interweb from a bus or other place without wifi I went with the phone. I ditched my wired phone.

I just got home from buying an 8gb iPod Touch. It's so pretty.

I like seanyboy's advice. If you want internet any time and the iPhone doesn't depend on a wifi signal, wait for the phone.

Consumerist has had a lot of horror stories about the iPhone this week. I'd hold off a few months so you don't get one with a yellow sreen/ doa/ etc.

As someone who has a wifi-capable Windows Mobile cellphone and an iT (great abbreviation), I say wait.

I specifically bought my cellphone for its wifi ability, thinking that I'd use it all the time. Even though I spend most of the year on a college campus with plentiful wifi, I find myself using the cell modem 95% of the time. This is because I'm always either on the move (in which case the connection would get spotty as I move between coverage areas) or don't want to wait for the wifi to connect. Basically, I've hardly ever used the wifi but can't live without the cell modem connection.

It's very usable for internet, and I don't even have 3G speeds where I live. Metafilter takes a few moments to load but it's not bad at all. Not worth firing up the wifi connection. Did I mention the wifi sucks battery like crazy?

I love the iT, it's a great device, and if you were locked into your cell contract like I am, I'd recommend it even if you only played your music on it. But October isn't that far of--just wait and get the single device that you'll love and find you can't live without.

Just a note, the iPhones don't have yellow screens. The color temperature is less blue. White looks white but more importantly the letters and graphics look sharper. And it is easier to read in the sunlight. It is the same color temperature as the iPod touch. If there is one dead pixel on it, Apple will replace either device if it has a bad screen (unless you purposely killed the screen with a blunt object). One of the "side benefits" of the required activation scheme is it is impossible to have a DOA since the device has to be on to activate. So a bad iPhone won't leave the store. Hence, the only reason to hold off buying an iPhone is so you can wait out your Verizon contract.

Metafilter does work well on slower edge networks (it is too bad they haven't made mobile.metafilter.com a complete mobile site with posting and new comments and whatnot like the awesome lofi.metachat.org) it works better in 3G and works best in wifi. Especially with the post with several long winded comments.

I love my iTouch. What I didn't love was paying 10 bucks to upgrade to firmware version 2.0 and not finding any apps that just reach out and grab me.

Speaking of consumerist, maybe you don't need to wait, if you want to go through call center hell.

But... since it's October, don't you get a prorated ETF? you can try to play that card if you call customer service as well ("Come on, 3 months, might as well let me leave in good terms, amirite?")

Since I often browse the interweb from a bus or other place without wifi I went with the phone.

Awesome, birdherder, this right here makes my decision much easier.

qvantamon, I'll look into it, thanks for the tip! I just got some kind of note from them about "phone upgrade options" so I'll definitely check it out.

I'm getting an iPod Touch in a few months, and all I can think about is the portable internet feature. The whole thing about carrying my whole music library in my pocket is an after thought. Hopefully I won't be disappointed to find that none of the places I go have WiFi available.

I'm going to do the touch too, because I can justify paying $200 for a phone, but I can't justify $70/month for voice and data. My cell usage is so low that I'm actually still on a Cingular prepaid wireless phone.

At the end of the day the touch is just an iPhone without the phone.

And will allow you to have VoIP too with the app store, right? So if you're around wifi enough, best of both worlds. On the other hand, if you can justify the cost of the contract, you'd be a fool not to consolidate two devices into one. That's my bottom line, right there.

I've been waiting for the iPhone forever now and decided not to go with the iTouch because it doesn't do anything that my iPod doesn't, except have the latest cool interface.

Wait a couple of months and avoid the inevitable regret when you have a brand new iTouch, but want an iPhone can can't justify the expense when you have something almost as good.

But then I'm getting a (sort of) free phone, so that is a big deciding factor for me.

Wait, does that even make sense?

It's phenomenal the way the iPhone is getting non-smartphone users like yourself to buy a smartphone. You could have had a music-playing, internet-capable phone YEARS ago, but only Apple has the power to make you buy.

I'm personally happy with my Treo 680, with a 4GB SDHC card for storage (which means I can swap out my music for movies/TV shows for planes/trains). It's a fair replacement for a laptop in some respects. It's got great PIM software. I can keep track of appointments, contacts, etc. It's got a Google Maps native application, and any phone number in the browser is clickable (which places a call). No wifi, but it's not terribly slow at browsing. It's got an SSH client for accessing the backend of my web server (again, I don't know how technical you want to get with your device). I don't think Apple has SSH, but I could be wrong. Probably more of a power feature than you want. It handles PDFs and MS Office documents (spreadsheets and word docs). I don't bother bringing my laptop with me on weekend trips because the phone's good enough and the laptop requires wifi which isn't always available.

Palm's Centro looks like a really good entry level device for someone who wants an organizer, some of the iPhone features, and none of the polish. But it's a dying OS. Palm really dropped the ball; they could have been on top of the world. I've been trying to get my grandmother into the Centro lately, because she needs the contact organizational features, and will likely be happy with the same phone for years (i.e. won't be too upset that there's never going to be a Palm OS upgrade to the Centro). iPhone users tend to be younger and will keep buying phones in the future, and they'll expect to be able to carry their stuff over to the next phone. It's going to SUCK when I have to decommission my Treo.

Does the iT have a mic? I thought it didn't and that's why VoIP won't work with it? Am I totally wrong? I'm getting an iT very soon since my iPod up and died on me and so I'm following this thread.

Oh, and Hi everyone! I've been AWOL visiting the coolest state of Alaska! I like AK.

No mic on the iT, but a while back someone was working on a little dongle for the dock port that had a mic in it. Not sure what happened with it, but it looked pretty cool.

It's phenomenal the way the iPhone is getting non-smartphone users like yourself to buy a smartphone. You could have had a music-playing, internet-capable phone YEARS ago, but only Apple has the power to make you buy.
Not sure if you were referring to me here, but it certainly applies. I've admired the Palm devices for years, but they always lacked a certain something that stopped me from actually buying one. One of the things has been the insane data prices here - this is the first time I have been able to get a phone that comes with a "reasonable" amount of "free" data included (in the same way that the phone itself is "free")- I've tried the whole mobile internet thing on other plans and ended up with insane bills for almost no benefit. My iPhone comes with 500MB included, which probably doesn't sound like much to people who live in places where they givehuge blocks of 'net data away with cornflakes, but it's a quantum leap for Australia.

Plus, there's just something about Apple hardware that makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside - there's no doubt that they have the knack for building hardware that "just works" in the way that other manufacturers' stuff can't quite match. The iPod, of course, is the classic example - I have operated probably 10-15 other types of .mp3 players and none of them have such an intuitive interface. The only thing that stops me from drinking the kool-aid completely and buying an iMac is the cost - not only the cost of the hardware, but the cost of replacing all the software I use. I'm pretty sure that I will go this way one day, though. Unless MS does something amazing in the meantime that blows Apple out of the water. I don't see that happening while my arse points to the ground, though.

there's no doubt that they have the knack for building hardware that "just works" in the way that other manufacturers' stuff can't quite match.

Bingo. Eide, one of the recent articles I recall seeing was how Japanese users tend to demand lots of obscure technical features on their smartphones that they then never bother to use, or that obfuscate the user interface and menu structure to the point where the things are darn near unusably complex.

I ain't a power user, man, I just want the bloody thing to work. Intuitively. Meaning I don't have to RTFM, ever.

oh and also: one of the things that I loved about Palm was the old, intuitive Graffiti interface. When they ditched that and went all keypad, I was like WTF, man?! Screw that noise, I get plenty of carpal tunnel action from my desktop @ work.

that's also why I've held off getting a crackberry for the past six or seven years.

I ain't a power user, man, I just want the bloody thing to work. Intuitively. Meaning I don't have to RTFM, ever.

Palm is great about this, but you'd never know it. =\

I have an app on my Treo called "Graffiti Anywhere". It restores graffiti functionality about 98% of the way. But yeah, I'd rather have a slider like my Tungsten T3, with pure screen area and landscape/portrait rotation.