I have to admit it, like my most people last January, when Steve Jobs showed off the very first iPhone, I wanted one. Badly! I had deep gadget lust of the strongest variety!

I followed his keynote speech, almost live via websites offering blogged coverage and before he was finished, I was clutching my credit card in awe of this new device, ready to plunk down whatever was required to have one in my hot little hands, as soon as humanly possible.

And then reality kicked in and the distortion field lifted and he pissed all over my party by telling me they would go on-sale in America only, sometime in June. As a north London based hippy, that was no good to me!

I could have imported one, while praying for an unlock solution so I could use it on a network here, but that seemed quite risky. Prayers were answered and unlocks were made available, but Apple has already turned the key, relocking all the iPhones with one lone update. More on this in a moment.

They said the iPhone would launch in Europe towards the end of 2007 and sure enough, Uncle Steve came to Ol’ Blighty and announced you could get one on O2 in November.

My current contract runs out in January and is on another network, which is no big deal. I don’t mind switching networks and I’ve done it before, just to get the handset I wanted. If I was that desperate, I could buy myself out of my current contract a couple months early, so I could make the big switch.

So what’s holding me back? What’s changed since last January when I was salivating so much for an iPhone that I needed to wear a drool-bucket under my chin?

Over time, I’ve identified a few key things that I would need the iPhone to do, before I switched to one.

1) 3G - for me, this is a deal breaker. My current phone is 3G and I do use it to occasionally surf the web, using the Opera Browser. No walled-gardens for me! As great as the iPhone’s browser and user interface is, and it looks amazing, surfing over Edge at slower speeds would piss me off. And while I know I could surf over Wi-Fi, when available, the fact is that where it is mainly available in my life, my home and my office, I’ve already got access to computers. Outside of those two key locations, Wi-Fi is not that readily accessible.

2) Storage - What really muddied the waters for me is the iPod Touch. I’ve spent the last couple of weeks weighing up the options between these two devices. The main striking difference is the amount of storage available in both the iPhone and the Touch, with the Touch offering twice the flash memory, in a thinner form factor. When the iPhone reaches 16 or 32mb, then I would be far more tempted.

3) Installing 3rd party applications - When Stevie J said that developers could only create app’s using Web 2.0 nonsense, I had hoped this was meant to be misleading and in time, the iPhone would be cracked and hacked, much like the AppleTV and the Sony PSP and it wasn’t too long before 3rd party app’s started appearing. The iPhone dev community has been very busy creating some very useful and fun programs to run on the iPhone, which certainly made the platform much more appealing. Apple slammed the door shut on these hacks this week. Even more worrying is that the iPod Touch seems even less prone to opening up, and this to me, defeats the purpose of both devices. By crippling them and locking them down to Apple-only app’s, they are being limited to such a high degree that it is putting me off.

What’s the point of having a multi-function, multi-touch, magic device in my pocket if I can’t make it do all the things I want it to do, that I know it can do. It’s my new toy and if I want to expand its capabilities, I should be allowed to! I take the same risk whenever I install an open-source or beta program on my computer! Why can’t I do the same on my pocket computer?

That’s what these new devices really are, they are pocket PCs, being sold to us under other i-friendly names! Don’t we deserve the right to do what we want with it and not have the mother-ship brick them with an intentionally constructed update!

That’s what happened this week, when Apple released its most recent iPhone update.

Look, I can understand Apple wanting to lock the iPhones to the carriers that have exclusive deals with them. I have had cellphones which were locked to a carrier, though after the contract period, it is fully within my rights to have the phone unlocked. Apple should be offering the same functionality, with iPhones. Once your contract period has elapsed, they should offer an unlocking service, so you can move the phone with you to another carrier, if you so choose. Don’t worry, Apple, you could always charge for this unlock, do it through iTunes and it would be like getting free money, everyone wins!

The other thing this update did, was it closed the backdoor used by the dev community to install app’s on the iPhone. This was totally unnecessary and pointless. Why have they devalued the iPhone this way? They say its to protect users from substandard software that could harm the iPhone. What a load of crap!

Hello, Apple spies. I know you keep track of what’s being written about you on the internet, even by weird hippies like me, so here goes: Why not create an approved developer’s kit for the iPhone? Even better, let people submit app’s to you and if they don’t harm the iPhone, make them available via iTunes. Create a new section, called iPhone add-ons, which are made up of approved app’s, created by the dev community. You could take donations for some, charge for others, share the revenue with the creators. Who knows…I bet there are people out there in Cupertino, who have written some cool shit for the iPhone that would love to share them with the world! Give them the chance!

Look, I’m going to buy an iPhone, eventually, but the iPhone I want is 3G, with more storage and an open architecture that allows for me to install additional app’s as I see fit.

You should open up the iPod touch as well, it shouldn’t be crippled and it should offer all the functionality possible. Why can you edit contacts on the touch, but not iCal events? You can do both on the iPhone and it just seems arbitrary and stingy.

Apple, I am one of you biggest fanboys, I have tons of your kit already and think its some of the coolest stuff I’ve ever owned. If I’m questioning my purchases, then something is indeed very wrong. I should be at the head of the queue to buy an iPhone and I am dragging my feet until the next generation and maybe not even then!

Sort it out! Give everyone the iPhones and iPod Touches they deserve!