OK, you may have noticed that this blog hasn't fallen all over itself to cover the iPhone. Aside from a couple of posts here and there, we've pretty much ignored the biggest Apple story in years — not to mention the most talked-about technology rollout in recent history. Despite the fact that we maintain an iPhone category on this blog which refers to the iPhone as part of Apple's "grand unified media strategy", the CouchGuy maintains that CouchApple.tv is intended as an Apple TV blog, and that iPhone coverage should pretty much be limited to how the iPhone and Apple TV interact as part of that strategy.

Besides, there is a TON of iPhone coverage out there already, including a whole list of blogs devoted solely to iPhone news and opinion. They have been doing a far better job of covering the daily iPhone buzz than this one-CouchGuy-operation could possibly manage.

Nevertheless, the iPhone touches the CouchGuy's world, too. As an Apple enthusiast going back to the early days of the Apple II, I am intensely interested in all things Apple and I've been following all the iPhone news with the appropriate measure of devotion. I knew early on that I was probably not going to buy one, at least not immediately. First of all, the iPhone is a pricey little piece of hardware. That hasn't always stopped me, mind you. I dropped the cash on the Apple TV soon after it became available for preorder, I bought the top of the line iPod with video right away, and I own no less than nine Apple computers, three of which are Macs in daily use. (Next up will probably be a Mac Mini if they upgrade it soon, or whatever replaces it in the Mac pantheon if not...)

But I just can't justify the purchase of an iPhone right now. I carry two cellular phones and an iPod everywhere I go these days. One phone is provided by my workplace — a very basic AT&T-carrier flip phone without even a camera. If my bosses would replace it with an iPhone, I'd embrace that in a heartbeat, but at my level that's highly unlikely. (My boss two levels above me carries a Blackberry, and she would be a likely candidate for an iPhone.) Besides, Apple/AT&T isn't giving much encouragement to corporate buyers right now on the iPhone. I'm not sure it is even available on a corporate buy plan as yet.

My second phone is a pay-as-you-go Virgin Mobile unit — again as basic and simple as I could purchase. I use it very little, but for some reason I can't let go of having a "personal" phone that I am not beholden to my employers to maintain. I call almost no one on it but my wife (who has the same service). Mostly, I purchased these phones for us because my wife and I got separated while on a weekend trip a few years ago and the incident made me vow to keep us tethered by cell phone ever after.

If I shelled out $500 for an iPhone, I'd be able to semi-retire my iPod with video (probably keeping it in my car, which is the place I really use it). I could also give up the Virgin Mobile pay-as-you-go. I'd be really happy to lose that, actually. Virgin Mobile service is aimed at teenage girls who want trendy ringtones and cool cameras, not guys in their mid-fifties. At my age, there's something disconcerting about having a phone carrier that answers their support line with "Yo!"

And the iPhone is truly a dream machine for me. I love all-in-one gadgets and the iPhone is the ultimate in this space. It is not only a video iPod, it is by far the best video iPod on the market, with features (but not capacity) far beyond anything I have on my once top-of-the-line iPod with video. The screen is amazing, visible under even difficult lighting conditions and gorgeous beyond belief. Navigation by flipping through cover flow is easy to get used to and just mind-boggling to watch.

As a cell phone, the iPhone is everything that every phone should be (and no other phone really is). It is easy to make a call, easy to get voicemail, easy to maintain contacts. Easy is the iPhone's middle name. Both my little flip phones are a pain in the ass to use. I've never updated all my contacts on my company phone (the newer of the two) because it is such a hassle to enter them. On the iPhone, I type my contacts in on my home computer's big keyboard and just sync with Address Book on the Mac. through iTunes. Done. Updating on the fly in the field is even easier using the iPhone's touch-screen keyboard.

Let's talk about that keyboard. Some pundits continue to bitch because the iPhone has no physical keyboard. Most phones have nothing but telephone keypads and they are painful to use for alphanumerics. Expensive Treos and Blackberrys have regular QUERTY-style keyboards, but they are still tiny. The iPhone touch-screen keyboard would probably take me a few days to master, but the AI they use to adapt to your typing and anticipate your data entry and catch your spelling mistakes seems smarter than any similar system I have ever seen. I think I'd learn to use it, and possibly to love it.

But it is the data functionality of the iPhone that makes it a dream device. How many times have I been out and about and needed information or access I could get easily if sitting at my Mac laptop? How many times have I had to scratch a note on a piece of paper, hoping I would not lose the note or forget later to hit the web and get the info I desired? When my wife Barbara and I were house-hunting a year ago, I'd have cheerfully tossed $500 at anyone who could have given me access to Google maps, my email, and a web connection to the multi-list sites that worked from anywhere and was small enough to fit in my pocket. A device that can put Wikipedia, Google, MacSurfer, Gmail, my company website, and all the rest of the internet at my fingertips anywhere, any time — that's my idea of heaven.

And I know all this works, not just from the hype but because I have now held an actual iPhone in my hands and used it freely. Last night at 7:30 I left work and on my way home drove past the AT&T wireless store in a suburban shopping mall five minutes from my house. I expected a crowd, but when I saw no line at the door I stopped in — and was holding a functioning iPhone in my hands ten seconds later. I'm here to tell you, the iPhone does not live up to the pre-release hype. It surpasses it. It is a better experience that the most glowing of pre-release Apple fanboy wet dream bloggers imagined. It feels like magic.

Yes, there are things I'd like to see improved. Wi-fi speed on the data functions is outstandingly fast, but it slows down greatly when on the expensive EDGE cellular network. (Going 3G would have improved the speed in places where 3G connectivity is common but done nothing for those of us in smaller markets where 3G isn't such a panacea — and increased the cost while vastly reducing the function time on a battery charge. EDGE was a good tradeoff and I understand why Apple went that direction.) Wi-fi is widely available, and the iPhone seamlessly jumps back and forth. It may not be as big an issue as some think. I also would miss my big capacity iPod — 8GB just doesn't compete with 60GB on that score. But I think that would matter to me only occasionally, if I can continue to keep the big video iPod in my car. When I'm away from the car, 8GB of music and movies would be enough. But those things are quibbles. The iPhone is the prototype of the Grand Integrated Device I have always wanted.

So why didn't I buy one? My wife, when I admitted I'd dallied at the AT&T store on my way home, even asked me why I hadn't brought one home. She half-expected I would, despite the fact that the last thing we need is to make a $500+ luxury technology purchase right now (what with our buying a new home and still having the old one to maintain for at least another several months). When she told me that, I experienced a momentary wave of techlust. I must have one credit card left with $500+ open on it. The AT&T store was open till midnight — I could go back...

But no. For me, the iPhone is a massively desirable, but totally impractical purchase. My cell phone use is such that it is wasteful for me to consider owning anything but a simple, minimally functional phone with a pay-as-you-go plan. I want instant data access from anywhere, but I do not need the monthly data service cost that goes with it.

If Apple offers (and I expect they will, soon) an uprated non-phone iPod with the iPhone's screen and interface, I'll almost certainly buy one. If it offers similar data capability via Wi-Fi only (again, without the cellular component), I'll be even more pleased to shell out the bucks. But I really don't want to be on a monthly cellular plan with expensive data service. I want the iPhone, but I don't want the monthly bills that follow.

So why is it that I began to suspect, when I held that little jewel in my hand last night, that I am somehow going to end up with one anyway?