Looking forward and back with Apple's iPhone

Has it really been a whole year since the Apple iPhone was first announced? I remember it was the only reason why I bought a brand new magazine from 7-11 for the very first time. The magazine's cover story was "Secrets of the iPhone". From the outside it just looked so sexy, and I found it very hard to resist the prospect of knowing even just a little more about it (at the time I had not been exposed to the world of blogs and online tech news sites yet, and I was only beginning to get acquainted with gadgets through old T3 Philippines back issues, so there).

So I found out that it had a 3.5-inch touchscreen, built-in ambient light sensor, accelerometer, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth AND it's a cellphone. There was supposed to be only one button on its face, but when I first saw the iPhone in photos I couldn't find that "button." Even when I held it in my hand for the very first time when imported units started to hit local stores, I couldn't find the damn button as easy as I'd expected. It was really a phone of a geek's dreams, and the only thing that kept me from thinking I'd ever own one is the ridiculously high pricing, not to mention that it'd be locked to AT&T.

But I kept my cool, and watched all these early adopters and hackers from the sidelines, never giving thought to the possibility that I might ever own one. I was there to cover the news when GeoHotz did the very first hardware hack that opened up the iPhone to other networks, and from that day on I considered myself a fan.

Less than two months ago, I would've bought a first-gen iPhone, but I thought about how impaired it would be with the lack of 3G network support, so I didn't. I went for an iPod Touch instead, thinking that I could complement it with something from Nokia's Nseries, or anything similar. But as I got to know how easy it was to download e-mail to my iPod, surf the Web with Safari, navigate the refreshingly cool menus, and control the mostly accelerometer-based applications, I couldn't help but think that the iPhone would've really been all I need.

And now that the second gen version is all but confirmed by Apple itself to be delivered by June 9th at the earliest, the thought keeps bugging me: maybe I should just forget everything else and get the iPhone 2.0. Should I get a 3G iPhone when it hits the Philippines? The answer seems so obvious!

If it were up to me, I would get the second-gen iPhone (probably even if it doesn't have 3G) but unfortunately, the official reports say it will be made available through Globe Telecom, which means it'll be under a contract.

But there have been rumors that the upcoming iPhone could come without a contract, at a lower price point and unlocked, no less! If that's the case, then I'll be jumping the gun sooner than your 3G connection can download this post. My girlfriend would love to have my 8GB iPod Touch (as I'm sure yours would).

Well, boys, the wait is on, and I hope we all get to have something to smile about come WWDC.

[Inspired by Adam Frucci]