By now you probably already heard about Apple’s new iPhone, soon to be released sometime mid-2007. Ahh yeah… leave it to Apple to make me want to spend more money on something I don’t really need (or at least I don’t think I need). The touch screen user interface is absolutely fantastic and looks like something that will revolutionize and push user interfaces forward. I can’t help but agree with Steve Jobs when he said “smart-phones” are all hard to use. Every single cell phone out there right now has a slightly different user interface, with slightly different menu options, and with slightly different user experiences. It’s like the blinking VCR problem, except 10 times worse. The iPod gave us a nice and elegant user interface for music, and I hope that the iPhone will do the same for cell phones and small tablet PCs in general. My one and only beef with it is that it is just too expensive, considering you have to sign on to a 2 year Cingular (or ATT&T?) voice and data contract, which would probably be an extra $60-ish per month. Ouch. Give me an iPhone without the phone requirement (aka touchscreen iPod) and then I’ll think about replacing my nano.

Apple also announced last week their new iTV Apple TV media device, which is basically a set-top device that streams media to your TV wirelessly. Despite having “TV” in it’s name, I don’t think it’s really a TV device. For one, you can’t actually use it to watch live TV or plain old DVDs. Granted, your actual TV already has live TV watching capabilities, and you probably already have a DVD player. But if Apple wants to take control of the living room, it’s really got to be able to do more than just stream media. I don’t need another box next to my TV, with another random remote controller sitting on the couch. Basically, the Apple TV is just a media extender… which is kind of disappointing, considering that Microsoft’s XBox 360 can do everything Apple TV can do, for basically the same price. Though I don’t have a Windows Media Center PC for the full effect, I can already stream my music, photos, and watch movie trailers on my XBox 360.

So all that to say, I’m interested, but not couple hundred dollars interested

PS, did anyone else see 24? Best Jack quote so far: “Don’t get up.”