As a phone, iPhone is stunningly innovative in some very practical ways. Its dial pad is big and easily readable. Each digit you dial lights a halo around your fingertip when you make contact. That contact requires only a feather touch, and you can easily dial and scan your Contacts database with your thumb (although it's optimized for righties). For quiet times, a flip of a side-panel switch kills the speaker, not just the ringer — Apple got this right — and activates the first truly silent vibrating motor I've encountered in a phone. People won't be able to tell how you knew you had a call coming in. That's the fringe benefit of a virtually seamless case.

The Bottom Line Apple iPhone Apple, http://apple.com AT&T, att.com Fair  4.9 criteria score weight Messaging 4 20% User interface 7 20% Extensibility 1 15% Voice capabilities 5 15% Application support 5 10% Multimedia 7 10% Value 6 10% Cost: $499 for 4GB Flash memory; $599 for 8GB flash memory; requires $36 activation fee plus 2 years of AT&T wireless service at $59.99, $79.99 or $99.99 per month; other options may be available to current AT&T subscribers Platforms: Apple iTunes (free download) on Mac or Windows PC; AT&T Wireless coverage with 2-year contract; Apple ID (free registration) Bottom Line: Consumers looking for a gadget fix and who don’t mind paying $60/month for it will be delighted by the iPhone, which is effectively a heavenly widescreen, Wi-Fi iPod with PDA and browser functionality. But for professionals, once you get your feet off your desk and get down to business, excitement gives way to deep disappointment. iPhone is trounced in professional features, including 3G, VOIP, push to talk, IM, voice dialing, and much more, by all comers within $200 of its price range. And because it's a closed platform in the iPod tradition, these absent features can't be added by creative third parties. Apple and AT&T ruined iPhone for the professional handset market. About our Reviews and Scoring Methodology

Answering an incoming call is supposed to be as easy as raising your iPhone to your head. That never worked for me, but your head may vary. In any case, if you add up what iPhone does, and what it's supposed to do, it appears you have a phone that you can operate one-handed and safely answer in the car. But no. iPhone lacks voice dialing or commands, so you can't use the phone truly hands-free.

While you're on the phone, even the freshest face will leave an oily smear on the display, and during every call, you're bouncing a hypersensitive touchscreen full of active buttons against your face. The side of my face matches the contour of the phone, but an assistant with more angular features was always muting his call with his cheekbone.

iPhone, being thin and slippery when wet, is a phone that you will drop, and often, and you'll have fun pinching its skinny head out of your pocket or purse before it stops ringing. Apple bundles a headset made of iPod earbuds with a cord-mounted microphone. The stereo 'buds sound good, and hitting the mic switch will kill the music and take a call, but this is not professional grade, and iPhone's 1/8-inch diameter headset jack is fitted for headphones, not an industry-standard telephone headset. Every iPhone buyer will need a Bluetooth headset and a holster or slipcover of some kind; be sure to audition both before you leave the showroom because compatibility is not assured in either case.

In all other regards, iPhone is a mediocre phone. Its speaker is too quiet for speakerphone use, and the audio quality of the headset is inferior to that of BlackBerry and Windows Mobile devices I have for contrast tests. Visual Voicemail, which creates a browsable inbox for voice mail, is a nice feature. You can jog through each message and view details of its sender, the time, and the date, as well as return the call with a button click. But you cannot forward the message to someone as e-mail or voice mail.

Pricey iCandy
I have plenty more to say about iPhone and plenty to show. I'm chopping up videos I've shot demonstrating the issues I describe in this text and in the notes that I'll share with you in coming days in my Enterprise Mac blog.

The upshot is that iPhone is a really sweet mobile device. If you could buy it without AT&T's service, I'd tell everyone to do so: Its flaws are perfectly tolerable if you acquire it as someone who's looking for a wide-screen iPod with Wi-Fi interface. However, since it is impossible to buy without $60 monthly payments, its quality as a phone and mobile browser is overstated, and it is a platform closed to third-party development, I can't recommend it. A professional or business user who buys into iPhone will be buying a smartphone or PDA to replace it before their contract is out. Lust lasts only so long.