You need a speedy broadband connection (at least 3Mbps); fast-forward can be wonky; like every other distributor the scope and selection its ever-changing catalog of 5k flicks is at the mercy of Hollywood studios. Stay tuned for own review, but if you're feeling hasty you can go ahead and slap down your $399 now. [NYT]

He also tests two traditionally shaped 7MP cameras, the Optio W30 ($237) and Olympus's Stylus 770 SW ($270). The Olympus is a fully rugged setup, shock and extreme temperature resistant, good down to 33 feet of water; the Pentax is good for 10 feet at two hours. I've used the previous generation Pentax and loved it for hawaii conditions. But I did lose it on a reef and only then did I learn what Pogue points out: None of these damn things float. [NYTimes]

Of course, you can't write an iPhone rivalry piece without a laundry list of phones from different makers that "copy" the iPhone's features: touchscreens (zany!), halfway decent music player integration and storage space, and "real" (or maybe not) Web browsers.

And if rewriting the same "OMG adapt to the iPhone or perish" scare story we've been reading since January wasn't enough, the piece starts wrapping up with a standard "Hey, look at Asia for a peek at the future" anecdote to end with the obligatory "the iPhone might get people to pay more for phones, which is good for everyone" blurb.

I feel like watching the NYTimes.com front page load over EDGE would've been a more productive use of my eyeballs.

Rival Manufacturers Chasing the iPhone [NYT]

First, he likes the design.

The phone is so sleek and thin, it makes Treos and BlackBerrys look obese.

And he doesn't mind the keyboard all that much either.

Two things make the job tolerable. First, some very smart software offers to complete words for you, and, when you tap the wrong letter, figures out what word you intended…Second, the instructional leaflet encourages you to "trust" the keyboard (or, as a product manager jokingly put it, to "use the Force").

It seems like Apple did things right. AT&T, on the other hand…

The bigger problem is the AT&T network. In a Consumer Reports study, AT&T's signal ranked either last or second to last in 19 out of 20 major cities. My tests in five states bear this out. If Verizon's slogan is, "Can you hear me now?" AT&T's should be, "I'm losing you."

But otherwise, you have to use AT&T's ancient EDGE cellular network, which is excruciatingly slow. The New York Times's home page takes 55 seconds to appear; Amazon.com, 100 seconds; Yahoo. two minutes. You almost ache for a dial-up modem.

The iPhone Matches Most of Its Hype [NY Times]

Consumers want touchscreens. Consumers want more media on their mobile phones. The iPhone's making everyone risk being "left behind" (said not once, but twice). But it's good for the industry. Some executive names in the entertainment industry are tossed around.

That's all dandy, but it's all dandiness we've heard before. More importantly, what does any of it have to do with the headline? Nothing, as far as I can tell. How is Hollywood seeking ways to get into the iPhone's world? I don't know any more now than I did five minutes ago. Gee, thanks New York Times.

Hollywood Seeks Ways to Fit Its Content Into the Realm of the iPhone [NYT]

The two that he liked the best were the Panasonic RP-HC500s ($100) and the Audio-Techinica ATH-ANC7s ($132), saying that they cancelled surrounding noise out while also delivering top-notch sound quality. As anyone who's listened to headphones on a plane can tell you, the ability to shut out that engine noise makes your trip a whole lot sweeter. It's nice to see some quality choices for people other than the rich and the clueless. –Adam Frucci

Headphones to Shut Out the World [NY Times]

All that verbiage can be boiled down to two sticking points: the lack of tactile feedback and the fact that people will have to re-learn (in at least a limited sense) their phone's method of input.

Point one is valid. Even Mossy has his doubts about the touchscreen conquering the keyboard. Haptic feedback would go a long way in addressing those concerns—look at the love for RAZR2's haptic-feedback touchscreen.

But the more interesting point, the second one, is that the iPhone "requires users to learn the new system, a task that Apple executives acknowledge may require several days." Helio's Sky Dayton is the primary mouthpiece here, saying that

There has never been a massively successful consumer device based solely on a touch screen. "Texting" is central to an entire generation of people... There is a generation of users who are always online and who don't communicate the way their parents did. They're e-mailing; they're texting; they're I.M.-ing.

There might be other reasons to doubt the iPhone, but an iron grip on input paradigms by this mysterious "always on" generation is not one of them. If anything, we're as fickle as they come, ready to drop old habits for new toys at any given second.

All that said, some haptic feedback wouldn't help Corrected: hurt. – Matt Buchanan

P.S. I'm only hard on you NYT because I love you.

That iPhone Has a Keyboard, but It's Not Mechanical [NYT]

The fundamentally flawed logic at its heart is that the effort to make gadgets smaller, easier to use and more people-friendly is one, a move to appeal to more women (rather than, you know, everyone) and two, that women need gadgets to be that way. As our six female readers can attest to, that's total BS.

The article goes through a laundry list of recent gadget redesigns that make them more intuitive, and then pairs them with a "female-focused" logic. For instance: "wider spacing of the keys on a new Sony ultraportable computer notebook that goes on sale next week. It accommodates the longer fingernails that women tend to have." Not because, you know, it'd be easier for dudes with fat fingers as well, or simply that cramped keyboards suck for everyone.

Lighter, tighter DSLR cameras, like the Nikon D40X? 'Cause girls need to cram them into their purses, naturally. Us mens like big, bulky cams. Entry level features? Not for entry level users, no, they're "designed with women in mind because they tend to be a family's primary keeper of memories."

Yes, that's right, making technology easier to use amounts to "feminizing" it, moving it away from "products historically shaped by masculine tastes, habits and requirements." Hell, Energizer released a $20 "Easy Charger" battery charger aimed at women because apparently the $33 Dock & Go model (male-targeted) is too complicated.

Gadget makers should acknowledge that more women—and people generally speaking—are buying and using gadgets (and reading Giz) but that doesn't mean they have to dumb down devices. Everyone wants gear that's easy to use—sex has nothing to do with it. To say that women need stripped-down tech is to be just as sexist as pretending that women don't buy electronics or play games in the first place.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled boob and dick-joke posts. – Matt Buchanan

To Appeal to Women, Too, Gadgets Go Beyond 'Cute' and 'Pink' [NYT]

He checks out GMail and Yahoo's apps, but faults them for being unavailable on many of the locked-down phones that carriers sell us. He much prefers the teleflip service, which forwards email messages from preselected senders as multiple txt messages.

I see where he's coming from, since most any phone capable of txt messages can work with teleflip, but man, I definitely don't want the flood of my inbox hitting my cellphone like a rain of twittter. Especially when each email gets broken down into 4-5 emails. *Shudder*

Hey, anyone catch his new show last Friday? He's got a schedule up.– Brian Lam

How to Make Your Cellphone Act Like a BlackBerry [NYTimes]