I was tired, exhausted, and about to fall asleep standing up (there were no seats in the pit). The week had been hell, and I was physically and emotionally destroyed. But then, the band and the Boss took the stage and night and blasted everything away. In a few seconds, as the adrenalin kicked in, the exhaustion disappeared. Then Radio Nowhere came. And Lonesome Day. And the Promised Land. From there, he and his band made every single one of the 60,000 souls in the stadium fly.

Three hours of pure rock, with the Boss giving it all until the end, when he sung a 10-minute version of Twist And Shout, mixed with—get this—La Bamba. Not a single pause. Just music, heart and soul. I just couldn't believe this guy is almost as old as my dad. Forget Mick Jagger. Forget bloody Bono. He is the greatest rock musician alive, a true force of nature.

And I'm not even—or was not, until this day—a fan. The whole thing was totally unexpected for me. At the beginning I thought "this is going to be amazing" and I realized I only had my iPhone, because like every other concert, cameras and camcorders are absolutely prohibited. Especially when you are in the front row and the security guy can shake your hand. Or get your camera away.

During the whole concert, the entire stadium was under his command, jumping, singing, waving, screaming, completely in ecstasy, electrified, everyone sweating under the hot Spanish summer night. He and the band were enjoying the whole thing to no end. You could see them laughing, looking at us with real surprise in their faces, as if they weren't believing that this huge stadium just couldn't stop singing and jumping through every single one of the songs they played.

They were giving all their life away right there, and the public was returning it right back. With interest. Each of us. Mass hysteria. Crowd orgasm. Total love and dedication from Bruce, the band, and the public.

At one point—one of many in which he came to sing even closer to us—the Boss walked to the central platform and took a girl up on the stage. I knew she was the daughter of one of the Spanish fans—who had been following him through the whole tour—because I met her before the concert started. She danced with him for a minute, smiling while the band played. It was just one of the many "I can't believe this is happening" moments of the night.

Right there, in the very first row, in the corner of the central platform, I could see all these moments perfectly, like I'm seeing the screen of my computer right now. We were able to actually shake his hand, as well as the hands of the band—who at the end all came to the center platform. I shouted at him at one point ("Yes! Take us up there!") and he replied looking straight into my eyes, with the biggest smile, pointing at me and saying "Yes, I'm going to take you there!" just before the band exploded with sound.

Another time, I could see him turning to Max Weinberg—at the end of Seven Nights to Rock—and whisper: "Born to Run!" And (boom!) Born to Run started to play a second later. At any time, I could turn around and see the 60,000 people in the Santiago Bernabéu—the name of the Real Madrid football stadium—singing, clapping, taken way by his power. Yes, it was absolutely breathtaking. All of it. From the very beginning I thought: "I have to share this with the people I love. I can't do this justice with my description. I have to take photos."

There was when I started hating the iPhone's camera.

Nothing, I wasn't able to take any of this magic with clarity. I'm not even talking about recording video (don't get me started on that). I'm just talking about making a decent photo with one of the most advanced pieces of technology ever developed. Only one single photo that didn't appear to be taken with a broken Lomo. By a drunk guy. Without a decent sleep in the last three days (OK, forget about the part about the drunk guy.)

Sure, there was some clear pics here and there, but whatever was OK'ish, it was also completely crazy and badly framed. Some of them look nice—as you can see here, in the gallery of untouched images—but most of them need cropping and heavy Photoshop treatment.

I know most cellphone cameras are exactly the same. They behave poorly under low light conditions, they are slow, and have bad interfaces. And yes, I have to admit I like the iPhone's camera blurriness and unwanted "special effects" sometimes. I even try to get similar effects with my DSLR. But that's optional. This time I only wanted one thing: to be able to frame a good photo. Without having to hold the iPhone in a weird position. Without trying to find the stupid software interface button and not miss the shot (which I did, plenty of times).

That's what I want. I don't want more resolution, and I don't want a stupid zoom. I would be happy (HAPPY) with good lenses and a better, speedier, more luminous sensor. And of course, the physical button. In fact, scrap the rest. Just give me the physical button. As much as I love virtual interfaces—because they open the door to multi-functional devices at a low cost, with great power and flexibility—I'm afraid that there are still times when the only way to go is a physical button. Photography is one of them.

And since we are at it, here's a note for the Nokias, Sony Ericssons, Samsungs, and LGs of this world: stop doing the silly marketdrone "More megapixels!" and "Bigger optical zooms!" race. Educate the users. Don't dazzle them with higher numbers. Give us all more quality, more light, and more speed. That's what really counts to catch the special, truly ephemeral, completely unexpected moments you want to save forever. Because when I think about it, even while I will always keep this concert in my—blurry as the iPhone's camera—memory, there would never be another one like it.

That's exactly what cellphone cameras are for. To capture the unexpected, to take decent pictures of the special moments in your life, because we can't go around life with a camera in our pocket at all times. That's what I want in an cellphone and, especially, in the iPhone. A camera to be able to take any moment we want, fast, and with good quality, under most circumstances. And Señor Jobs, no matter what, please give us the physical button on the iPhone 3G 2.0.

Fake Steve Jobs:

Yes, there will be a backlash. Wait until you see what the mobile phone guys have planned. Like Nokia. God love those Finns, but they never met a button or a switch that they could resist. They’ll load their devices up with every possible feature and they’ll create a software interface that nobody can understand, and for reasons I don’t understand, weird people all over Europe (the artsy kind wearing too-small jackets and scarves wrapped around their necks) will embrace this clusterfuck of useless features and impossible operating design as a new breakthrough.

Not us, though. We’re going to keep driving toward even greater minimalism. My goal is to have zero buttons. Zero visible screws. Just nothing at all on the outside. Perfectly smooth surfaces. Remember the Pet Rock craze in the '70s? That was a huge inspiration for me. People spent a fortune buying those little rocks, just because everyone else around them was doing it too. Huge lesson in that and it led directly to the founding of Apple in 1977. My pet rock — I call him Frank, after Frank Gehry — still sits on the desk at my office. Kind of a reminder of what our company is all about.

Bruce Sterling

Yeah, it's incredible how much power [the real Steve] Jobs has, isn't it? Even when his company's on the ropes, if he says, "It'll be translucent, blob-shaped and in lickable candy-colors," people from Toledo to Taiwan just go for it. Whereas, if an iPod or iPhone's got no buttons, all of a sudden buttons are like leprosy. You can "backlash" the Reality Distortion Field, but you're better off not trying.

Projects Watch Designer Daniel Will-Harris

Minimalist designs like the iPhone are quite beautiful, but also, in a way, invisible. They become frames to the content. But fashions in design are always evolving, and what's cool now may look dated, or at least "not new" in a few years.

I see a time when devices have a standard core of electronics designed to be placed into a wide design of cases tailored to your specific needs and desires. These cases would be offered by the device manufacturer, and also by third-parties who are given the open specs for creating a case. Think software skins, but as hardware. You could get a custom device case that specifically is molded to your grip, or is shaped like your favorite pet pygmy hamster. Maybe you want your device to be made of waterproof soft orange silicone, or milled out of hard cold malachite.

Now with rapid prototyping machines [and other new techniques], mass production doesn't have to mean endless sameness, it can mean endless variety. Sure, there will always be those who want what Madonna is carrying (and knockoffs will be easier and cheaper than ever). But customization and personalization will let you make devices more uniquely your own.

Yves Behar, head of fuseproject design firm:

Rather than going with a trend—minimalism vs. a more showy design—we're gonna get much more diversity. Companies will have the opportunity to be unique. The hope here is that there is opportunity that is taken by tech companies to create their own direction, create their own ethos recognizable, one from the other. Wired Magazine created something like this from the start, a unique look. Whether you like fluorescent colors or not, it's that kind of individualism or uniqueness, eclecticism. Hopefully this is something we'll see happening more. Living in a trend-driven environment with everything being matchy matchy isn't very interesting.

[Slashfilm]