Excuse me, but this gadget was designed by men for men. Being the girly girl that I am, I keep my fingernails long. I like to scratch the itch. There’s nothing more satisfying than bearing down and taking a layer of dermis off when you’ve got a terrible itch. Unfortunately, that precludes using this device. Period. End of story. I don’t even need to proceed any further. If you are not a nail biter, you can never use this phone.

All the men around me thought it was the bomb. I glanced at their fingers. They were all effing nail biters. Shit. Even I AM a nail biter when I am bored at work, but I don’t bite down to the quick. That’s disgusting and makes your fingers bleed, an even worse biohazard. But of course their fat sausage fingers are greasy and skating right across the glass surface. The idea of that makes me nauseated and reach for the Windex.

All around me I heard was that it was amazing. Honestly, I don’t think it’s that great. It’s still not going to replace a laptop and wireless connection for a person like me. Either I want a phone or I want a highly connective mobile device, but apparently what I really want is a sub-notebook about 4-6” across with a wireless card, and a full-size 110-key folding keyboard accessory. The Jesus phone doesn’t cut the mustard at all. (I am seriously thinking of patenting that idea so if any of you are electrical engineers with experience in injection molded plastics, please contact me.)

I don’t have chunky fingers and I was still mistyping out the wazoo. I literally had to hunt and peck with my ring finger (shortest fingernail) to type. The interface could not keep up with my speed. Also, for the auto guessing of words, I couldn’t easily figure out at first which button would complete the fill because I could not accurately ascertain which one I was hitting. (Why does the return key actually do a carriage return after it autofills? That’s crap. Auto fill with no line break.) I did try covering my finger with my shirt tail and typing, which was surprisingly effective, even through a couple layers of fabric. I hear that with gloves on, it’s impossible to use, which sort of precludes outdoor winter use, say in front of a bar grabbing a smoke trying to get your friends to meet you inside in 15 minutes as they walk from the metro. (Who says the smoking ban in SF, NYC and DC sucks? At least you get clear signal outside!)

The other thing that really struck me as poorly done is that the screen automatically rotates the output for web browsing. Ok, that’s pretty neat and a good idea. But when you use Safari and the top tilts 90 degrees to the right, that’s great. I’m a righty and that instinctive for me. But when I was looking at the embedded YouTube application, IT TILTED THE OTHER WAY. Um, not cool to have to rotate it 180 degrees from the web browser just to watch video. That’s insane. The Apple dweebie in the store insisted that I had done something wrong, however, a device should never automatically switch from one orientation to the other like that spontaneously. I should be able to set it to a righty setting and lefties should get their own setting. That’s a pretty reasonable GUI expectation.

To be fair, my blog looked GREAT onscreen! So did my blogpal, David’s blog (see the iPhone inputted comment I left there and the crappy typos). And PFBlogs.org. Three sites I would definitely visit if I had a mobile device. I have a PSP and I have tried to use WiFi to browse the web with it, but frankly it sucks. The iPhone is VAST improvement over that. The incoming sound over iPod headphones was ok. I didn’t get a chance to hear back from anyone about how the phone messages sounded that I left for them. (Buckethead?)

OH. Word to the hygiene wise, if you wish to go to see this device, TAKE YOUR OWN HEADPHONES. It was vile to watch the unwashed masses use the the same headphones over and over. I happened to have my iPod in my purse and used my own self-defiled headphones, thank-you-very-fucking-cleanliness-much. I only wish I had Purell because I was touching that screen all over and was getting grossed out. I didn’t want to put it up to my face to use lest my skin I break out from necrotizing faciitis. Really, you cannot be too careful around these Mac fans. While their brand image may be clean, oy vey, their clientele is not. And this is the NoVA, BMW-driving yuppie crowd. It was teh ick. And for those not in the know, I am not a clean freak, but basic public health demands some more caution. Thank god it came out in the summertime, because during flu season, it would be quite the vector for spreading germs. (Don’t even tell me that these are special headphones with the mic in the cord, I don’t care. It’s gross. Do want me to breathe all over your food the next time we dine together?)

Ok, that’s enough of my ranting. You get the point. I’m not throwing away money on this thing. I pity Buckethead who will probably shed tears of joy when he first gets it and the curse AT&T 6 months later for the poor service. (News tip, VERY VERY LATE on Friday afternoon, 6pm ish EDT, AT&T announced the purchase of Dobson Telecom, which will give them better coverage in flyover country, so in a year, complaints about spotty service around the US might actually be moot. I presume I will still not be able to get a signal from inside the anechoic chamber better known as my parents’ home. I swear, the NSA doesn’t even block radio signal that well. Only Verizon gets through there. Sprint, Nextel AT&T nothing. You have to walk down the driveway to the sidewalk to get signal.)

[Wik] I really, really, really wanted to like this phone. I did. I really want to be one of the cool kids and I was hoping it would be suitable for what I want, but alas, it’s not. I *heart* Steve Jobs and I’d give my left pinkie to go work at Pixar, even if that would slow down my typing, I’d do it. There’s something hot about the turtleneck and the rimless glasses, but I bet he’s another psycho behind the wheel of a black BMW, because he definitely is a megalomaniac.