Just got a 32GB iPhone 3GS from Italy.

Was in the mobile industry for 7 years, as a stack and UI test engineer.

No wonder they're petrified: this thing is simple and it holds together beautifully. It seriously kicks the living shit out of any handset I've tried. It's compelling, slick, solid, seamless... I'm not surprised it engenders such wildly exaggerated emotions from people.

And the reason it holds together is, in part, because the API is restricted and you can buy apps from the store and nowhere else. This is the level of quality control which needs to be present for these very VERY complex devices to not fall apart under the weight of endless hacked up pieces of cack (like Windoze inevitably does) and to give that pleasing uniformity of interface and style.

If anyone is so pissed off with Apple for doing this, they should just ignore Apple products. I bought one because I'm tired of badly-implemented, slow and buggy smartphones, and right now it feels like I made the right choice to "dumb down".

As for the guys creatnig the jailbreaks - good on yer lads, a technical challenge is always worth havnig a go at. Anyone willing to break their iPhone out - good on them too, if you want to experiment and open your handset up to the risk of (non-apple) malware then it's your look out - enjoy the range of apps doing stuff we just don't get in the apple apps store.

But fer gawd's sake, get a life if you think this means apple are satan incarnate... I've worked with mobile software for years and I can see apple's model should mean that the bloody phones still work in a few years. Touch wood.