World Holding Collective Breath - For A... Phone?

I'm here on the west coast - a mere 4.5 hours away from San Francisco and a mere 3.5 hours away from "history in the making". The most-anticipated, most-speculated about, most-hyped event in the known universe!!! It's.. it's... it's...

The introduction of a mobile phone.

It's just a phone. Really. You can make calls on it, listen to music on it, and now - you can (probably) even use it in Europe. Now your iPhone can (probably) use GPS and (probably) Exchange Server. Cool? Yes. Worth hyperventilating about? No.

There has been so much speculation and nuh-uh rebuttals this past week - that I think I'm ready to puke.

On one side, you have the twinkie-and-jolt "MS Windows is just as good if not better than that iPhone crap" side waiting with bated breath for the Blackberry Thunder, and on the other side... well, you-know-who. The folks that think (and vote with their dollars) that the iPhone is the end-all, be-all of the mobile communication universe.

Hey, some of my friends have the iPhone, and it's a cool piece of hardware - that much, I'm not denying. I don't personally own one, so I everything I know about it comes from them - or from fondling one at the Apple store across the street from my office.

I don't have a Blackberry either. I don't have a Windows Mobile phone. In fact, I don't have a "smart" phone at all.

My phone is old, dumb, and nearly indestructible. It's a Motorola v547 - and I didn't even buy it myself - I got it as a gift. I haven't bought a new phone in over 5 years. I don't own an iPod (my daughter and wife do, though). I'm using XP, not that fancy Vista. I have an iMac, upgraded with Leopard on it (that has had the motherboard replaced and crashes like a mother).

Needless to say, I'm in the market for a phone, and maybe an MP3 player. I've wanted to replace my phone for about 6 months. Then the Android announcement came out. Then the iPhone 2.0 announcement came out. Then the Blackberry Thunder announcement came out.

So, I'm keeping an open mind - and I'll be watching at 10:00am PST when the equally beloved and beguiled, sweater-and-jeans clad, Ron Popeil of the tech age makes the hallowed announcement...

Oh, and I'm heading to the Apple Store at lunch time...