So I managed to last about 15 hours after the iPhone's UK launch before I cracked and got one. Already having a phone through work, it seemed extravagant, but I think everyone that knows me knew I would get one. I'm just surprised I lasted that long ;)
The phone is great, by far the best phone I have ever had. There is something about Apple that fills you with confidence over how things perform, you know every area has been thought through, and nothing was a last minute hack. The phone is elegant both in hard ware design as it is software. From the phone book to the contacts everything looks fantastic. Compare a contacts information on the blackberry with a contact on the iPhone and you'll see what I mean.
Before getting the phone I was most concerned about the touch screen. I have had phones in the past that implemented touch buttons for the worse possible reason, just for the sake of it. The advantage of a touch screen is buttons can move, and change. So when Samsung replaced the main buttons on my old E900 with touch button it didn't really make sense. Apple however have made it feel so natural, I can't think how I used to interact with a phone's onscreen messages and options. I honestly resent apple make me push the home button, it feels so manual and so much effort!?!?
Typing is great, I am surprised at how fast I can do it. The phone will predict what you are typing and correct it if you don't do anything. For example typing, "yhen" will return "then" because "y" is next to "t" it guesses you made a mistake. If you trust it, you'll be flying. The only annoying thing is you can't rotate the phone in every mode to get a wider keyboard with bigger keys.
There is lots of room for improvements though. Americans clearly don't understand texting, and have turned it into iChat. This is cool but means you can't send bulk texts, or create drafts or templates, delivery reports etc. There is also no MMS, but then with email (well when they are all Push) in the future I'm sure we won't need it.
Other niggles include things like; contacts being inside the phone menu rather than having an address book, stocks... who wants stocks?, no flash, no way to save images from the web, no copy/paste, no video recording, max frequency of checking for email is 15 minutes, quite lo res photos, silly recessed headphone socket, no .co.uk button to replace .com, inability to increase text size on safari for wide paragraphs, its very hard to take photos of yourself, etc etc
However there is just as long a list of great little things, the note feature is fantastic, you can look at any website, there is a "ring ring" ringer, maps works soooo well with businesses, the ipod is beautiful (what was with scroll wheels????), texts are great (ignoring its problems), email is email, with attachments, HTML and everything, Yahoo! Mails push service works great (hurry up Google!!!), visual voicemail is amazing, wifi internet and edge work great, home setup is much nicer than sitting with a commission horny 17 year old, I keep thinking the screen is a print out it's that perfect, side volume controls for an iPod!, silent physical switch, etc etc
I couldn't recommend one enough, and I look forward to interesting software updates, something that could really set the iPhone apart!