The San Jose Mercury News has a picture of me reacting to getting my iPhone. Yes, I was, and still am, excited. My son has turned me into an Apple fanboy. Heheh.

Thomas Hawk, I’ll always treasure this photo you took of me and my son and a couple members of the original Mac team. Always. And his writings this morning NAIL why it was an incredible two days.

Remember, I still don’t have an iPhone. My son has one. Maryam has one. I didn’t get one. Why? Cause I have a Nokia N95 and I wanted to see if the hype really was worth selling a $750 device (which surely this morning is worth less) and buying a $600 one that had fewer features. I guarantee you that I’ll be getting an iPhone soon. Even after noticing its many flaws this morning it still meets the hype. I wasn’t quite as prepared as Patrick in the savings department. It’s Maryam’s birthday today and I spent my discretionary income on her since she desperately needed a new phone. Her TMobile didn’t work in the house, the iPhone has full connectivity with both Wifi and AT&T.

Anyway, Thomas Hawk. What can I say? The two days I spent in line with you and hundreds of other people were two damn fun days.

OK, I have some sleep. The waiting-in-line with famous original Mac team members Kool Aid is wearing off.

I want to be snarky. Write a horrible review of the iPhone and tell you how it’s all a bad joke.

I want to tell you how the keyboard sucks. I want to tell you all about how the camera sucks. How it sucks for not coming with any video games. How the activation process was too difficult. How horrible it is that there isn’t a replaceable battery. That the device is already getting tons of finger prints and smudges on it. That the fonts on the browser are too small to read on many Web sites. That it wasn’t worth the time waiting in line (although you could have walked right into the Palo Alto store last night and picked one up).

Oh, this snarky review would continue to discuss what a tragedy it is that it doesn’t have 3G. That it doesn’t have Flash, or the .NET Framework, or the Java runtimes on it. That it’s not available to people in most of the world.

But then I start playing with the device and I find I overlook all these faults. My Nokia N95 doesn’t have any of these faults but it just isn’t as easy to use. Nor as fun. And the screen! Whenever I look back at my Nokia I feel like I’m using Windows 3.11 on a 640×480 screen again after I’ve gotten Windows 95 and am running it at 1024×768.

This phone is far from perfect. It has lots of weaknesses that Apple’s competitors can exploit. The snarky reviewer inside me can point them all out to you on this morning after if you’d like. But it really doesn’t matter. This phone drags you back to it even if you’re kicking and screaming and noticing the flaws.

But the other companies are only going to be able to keep Apple from taking massive market share if they dramatically push their phones forward.

Seriously there’s one customer who REALLY should think about not buying an iPhone: someone who uses a thumb keyboard phone like a Blackberry. The keyboard is frustrating to use if you are a heavy Blackberry user. That’s the one case where the iPhone’s other benefits will have a tough time counteracting those flaws.

For ME that’s not a big deal (I will never own a device with a thumb keyboard again because back in the 1990s when I owned a Blackberry I was such an addict to using it that I got repetitive stress problems and my hands started hurting. That pain went away when I lost that Blackberry in a cab in New Orleans back in 2000).

My #1 frustration this morning with the iPhone? Fonts. Dave Winer’s right. I want to change the default view on the Web browser to always be zoomed in.

So, what’s your “morning after” review?

I’ll have Patrick give his morning after review after he gets up. The poor kid was pushed to his breaking point. He was so tired that he didn’t even want to stick around to meet Steve Jobs. If you know Patrick you’d know that’s how you can really tell he was tired since meeting Steve Jobs is one of his life goals. Back later.