Andy, please reconsider your persistence in having two devices. The very best reason for a combined iPod and Apple phone is that you have to smash only ONE item when you're upset!

I just want a phone that plays well with my Mac. If it is extraordinary, all the better.

I do like a camera and an MP3 Player, but I assume that if I want great pix, I'll bring a dedicated camera.

I just want my computer in my pocket.

I don't want an iPod phone. I do, however, want a phone made by Apple. I have yet to use a phone that hasn't irritated me when I try to perform the most basic function. I want a phone that "just works". I believe that Apple are the company to provide that

I second Kevin.
My bet is that Apple will produce SLEEK phone with MP3 player capabilities, reasonably good camera and seamless computer sync.

That's it. That's what I am willing to pay $299 for.

If Apple wants to stay on a par with its own tradition, since it introduced with the Macintosh a more human way of interacting with a computer, the "iPhone" should be a very peculiar cellular phone, e.g:
- it should discourage overusing and preserve the mental health of the proprietor by cutting overlong calls
- it should sense when its user is in a place where a call might disturb the surrounding people and answer calls silently, advising the callers to retry later, or, better, to forgo the call altogether.

You may say I hold a grudge against cellular phones, and you're right, perhaps, but you must consider that I happen to live in Italy, where those f... contraptions are so pervasive that you cannot stay a minute without being disturbed by them, even in a concert hall or in a church. I fear some day I'll get smashed to smithereens by some moron driving a SUV, who, while already holding a cellular phone to his/her ear with a hand and conversing animately, will move his/her remaining hand from the wheel to fetch another phone and answer a further call.

Has anyone considered that this forthcoming iPod "plus" device may be as much a software update as a hardware update? Could it not be geared less toward phone features (competing in a highly saturated market) and more towards incorporating iTunes (and the ability to purchase songs anywhere at any time) in the handheld device? That would go light years toward further cementing the iPod in users' minds as the gold standard in audio devices and does nothing to muddy the waters over how to define what the device is or what its uses are.

I already have an iPod. That's not why I would buy an iPhone. I would buy one because companies like Sprint hamstring the Bluetooth capabilities so you will have to pay them to do what you want to do. All I want to do is move my contacts and calender to-do's from my Mac to my phone. I don't want to enter info on my phone. I would rather do so on a keyboard, not a keypad. That's what would be so great about an iPhone.

The newest rumor about the iPhone (from Kevin Rose) was that it would have separate batteries for the MP3 portion and the phone portion, so that the scenario in the article of draining your phone by listening to music would never happen.

I second what David said - An "Apple Phone" would just make cellphones into a beautiful non-painful experience... But, seeing as the majority of the pain is caused by CARRIERS, I can't help but think that the most "Apple" way to do a phone would be to sell an affordable unlocked-on-all-services phone - GSM, CDMA, you name it. If I could buy a reasonably cheap phone that runs on Sprint when I'm in the Bay Area, but doesn't suddenly die when I go to France, that would be worth a lot. And, you know, throw an iPod in there eventually, and more features, etc... But just make "cell phones" as easy and painless as music players. Please!

Like most of the posts, I am anxious to see how Apple "interprets" the phone. What kind of "experience" apple will create for using the phone.

As the previous poster stated, the one feature we "think we know" about the iPhone is dual batteries, which interestingly enough fixes the first frustration expressed by Andy!

As a total music geek for life, I would expect my buying cycle to be shorter for a music player than a phone. Having both in the same unit might look like wasted expense to me, but I don't know and won't know until I feel what Apple has.

I have a Treo 650 that I just got 3 months ago. I absolutely love having my entire contact database in it and synched. And that alone makes it a must-have that I avoided for several years. However, the web-experience on this phone is attrocious. If I want directions to my friends house or want to see tonights movie schedule, it's easier and more reliabel to roll the window down and ask the next homeless person I pass.

So, I'm anxious to see Apple's take on the phone and the role it should play.

Jim

I see the iPod + phone move as a defensive one against Nokia.

With their recent additions of high capacity storage, decent music playing & desktop software, AND the purchase of a music supplier (Loudeye), it's unquestionably clear that Nokia has its sights on the portable music market.

Now, a cellphone is a device almost everyone gives priority over all other devices if they are limited in belt, pocket or purse space. In the modern world, the phone is central to all but the most determined luddite's life.

So, if an evolved phone can soon do what an iPod does, and doesn't require you to make extra carrying space for it, why carry an iPod at all?

I think this is a case where convergence is inevitable. In the past, convergence of various devices has failed because each device has ended up being the worst of its class, eg, cellphones with murky, poor quality cameras.

However, with companies that have a track record of design excellence such as Nokia entering the fray, and a commitment to making the portable music experience work as well as as on a dedicated device, Apple has to be in this market or it could see its brand advantage rapidly diminish.

Currently, "iPod" is synonymous with portable music, and Apple can use it to enter the phone market on its terms: "this iPod can also do what a phone does - so leave your old phone behind, your iPod is all you need!"

If it didn't do it now, then soon this would become Nokia's message: "this phone can do what your iPod did, so leave your iPod behind if you had one, and if you didn't, you no longer need to buy an iPod..."

Not a good situation for Apple.

So, the time for iPod + phone is now, while it's the iPod which is still playing the tunes rather than the phone.

I have never met a cell phone I like since the sony I had from around 1998. That was a phone that made phone calls, with clear sound. If Apple can do that, and make it sync as seemlessly with iCal, Address Book, and iphoto as it does with iTunes...well, then I'll buy one. And it will be my first iPod. Perhaps you should think of people like me who love my macintosh, hate my phone, and have no need or desire for an ipod. If the phone is good, I'll buy it, and maybe I'll listen to music on it once in awhile.

Having said that, I think the real key to all this, if they make a smart phone, is safari lite, and full on ichat--the leopard version. Various forms of chat, including video and text messaging, remote control of your computer--and the same thing on iTV--and wait for it--its the remote control for the iTV if you want it to be. I think they'll bundle ichat with the iTunes.

But the first phone, dear Steve, just make it a phone that makes calls and syncs with my mac.

iPod is for connecting you with media you enjoy
iPhone is for connecting you with information you need

I have been hoping that was how Apple saw it. To apply their skills toward building the definitive phone, no one has accomplished that yet.

GPS, Google, iChat, device connection, camera, gathering, sharing. I would suppose it's the phone they are re-thinking, not the iPod. And I do hope that is what they are thinking. I have hated every cell phone I have ever had. I had the original shoe size Motorola when it first came out.

Think of all the possible uses for; voice, data, GPS, capture, network, and device communication combined with partners (say Apple and Google) that have a clue. Eighty percent share of the cell phone market is my guess.

That is the device and platform I want them to make. They could be doing that.

I second what David said - An "Apple Phone" would just make cellphones into a beautiful non-painful experience... But, seeing as the majority of the pain is caused by CARRIERS, I can't help but think that the most "Apple" way to do a phone would be to sell an affordable unlocked-on-all-services phone - GSM, CDMA, you name it. If I could buy a reasonably cheap phone that runs on Sprint when I'm in the Bay Area, but doesn't suddenly die when I go to France, that would be worth a lot. And, you know, throw an iPod in there eventually, and more features, etc... But just make "cell phones" as easy and painless as music players. Please!

Andy, if you could somehow pull some strings to get Ellen Rocche invited to that slumber party I'll buy three iPhones day one.

I agree completely with the idea that to get excited we need to apply some imagination to the idea. That must be part of why Apple has delayed the project so long. To get it different. Hope so at least.

Finally, the idea behind two batteries seems fine, but it might be a non starter. My W810i has one battery and lasts a full day, all the time playing MP3's or the radio, taking 2mp photos and/or movies, checking and sending email and text, web browsing, calling, bluetoothing, etc, etc.

I'm not excited by an iPod phone, fro two reasons.

First... the same reason that I'm not excited by a PDA phone, or a camera phone, because every bit of stuff you put in a phone... even if it's just a ginchy low-res CCD and inadequate lens... takes up space that I could use for a bigger battery. I've done that, got the dead PDA/cellphone/camera and that wasn't even an MP3 player as well.

TWO batteries? That means the cellphone battery is even smaller, and you have to charge it every day... god forbid you forget to plug it in overnight... instead of every other day. Five years ago, my cellphone had a black and white screen that only displayed phone numbers, but I could take it on a long weekend trip and leave my charger at home and STILL call my wife on the way home. Now the best I've managed has two screens, a Java interpreter, three instant message systems, and when I lost my car charger I had to buy another one or the battery wouldn't have lasted through an overnight business trip.

Given my experience with my Macbook Pro, an Apple phone will need to be charged twice a day... but the car charger will be so cool looking you won't care.

That brings me to the second reason. Apple's supposed good design. Hello, folks, one button mice? Passive-aggressive tricks with capacitance sensors to keep from adding a second button? An MP3 player that you have to *look at* to be sure you're changing the volume and not switching a playlist or jumping to the next track? Apple's great at looking good, but their design chops are strictly Andy Warhol... not Buckminster Fuller.