This makes it harder

Alex Ross has praise for the iPhone. Like I said, this makes it harder for me to despise the iPhone as I once did. Alex Ross is usually pretty right about things.

Now, don't get me wrong, I use an Intel iMac, an iPod, and am generally a fan of Apple products. Still, I just don't like the iPhone. First of all, I cannot stand Ma Bell*: the Justice Department's antitrust breakup of AT&T has clearly failed, but now AT&T offers less service at a higher price. That's progress. My thoughts on the deal are detailed below, but I'll let it suffice to say that the soul-crushing telephone company and the free-spirited computer-company-that-could are strange bedfellows.

My other objection to the thing is that things that try to do everything end up being a pain. The iPod - though not until recently if you were a classical fan - did one thing really well: it played lots of music without much fuss. Then, it added video. OK, not a super-problem, but it got a bit trickier. Now, a phone, touchscreen, camera, and all the other stuff. Add to this, the obscene media groveling to a phone. Now, Apple gets "media darling" status anyway, but - let's be fair - some of this coverage is over-the-top. And, in some cases, over-the-top and back again.

Ross' endorsement makes it harder for me to loath the iPhone as much as I do, but I'm still keeping my BlackBerry 8830. I'll just go from table-pounding iPhone antipathy to quiet snark whenever it's brought up.

*I have a soft spot for the old Indiana Bell and I use Verizon, the product of Bell Atlantic, NYNEX, and Vodafone.