The biggest issue from my perspective, though, is that there's a fundamental disconnect between the hardware and the software. That's in part by design: the G1 is only the first phone running the Android OS; in the next year or so we should see several others, many of which will have different form factors and capabilities. To support all those different models, the operating system needs to be versatile--again, the comparison to Linux, which can run on pretty much everything from servers to netbooks to your toaster, is apt.

One of the things you probably don't think about on the iPhone is probably the most basic design decision: you will operate ninety-nine percent of the phone with the touchscreen. Don't worry about figuring out which hardware buttons you have to press to do what; almost all the controls you need are contained within the canvas of the touchscreen.

This is the G1's big failing for me. Because it's a generalized platform, it's not designed from the ground up for just the touchscreen. You can do things on the touchscreen. Well, some things. But sometimes you need to jump back and hit that hardware Menu button. Or the home button. Or the back button. Or you could ignore the whole touchscreen thing and use the trackball instead. That's a lot of choices, and sometimes when it comes to users, choice is bad. If the user has to think about which interface they need--or even want--to use, for a particular task, that takes up time. An infinitesimal amount in each instance, yes, but it adds up.

And with the G1 that happened to me constantly. I would be tapping on the screen trying to figure out how to get the Web browser to let me type in a URL, focused entirely on the touchscreen, without realizing that I had to first press the hardware Menu button (which, when you have the keyboard open is oriented vertically near your right thumb--sorry, lefties) to bring up the menu, then tap--or select with the trackball--the Go to URL button before I could enter a URL. At which point, if I was using the phone in portrait mode, I need to slide it open to be able to actually enter text. 

The problem with generalizing the software to such an extent is that while it works with many devices, it doesn't work perfectly with any device. The iPhone is at the exact opposite end of the scale: you can choose 8GB or 16 and white or black. It's Henry Ford-level dictatorial control. It's a top-down device, whereas the G1 is a bottom-up one.