I'm amazed it works as well as it does, but yes... it's horrible. I successfully avoided smart phones until last year. It's amazing what can be done with such

I'm amazed it works as well as it does, but yes... it's horrible. I successfully avoided smart phones until last year. It's amazing what can be done with such a horrible user interface, no keyboard, and only an overly sensitive touch screen. I bought a $200 unlocked Motorola phone, and I'm fairly pleased with my purchase. This magic black glass slab packs a lot of computing power, and runs all day on a single charge. (I chose the lowest resolution screen, which means the least power to keep it refreshed, as I can't see the difference) The software does the best it can, but nothing comes even a bit close to the amount of functionality you get with a real buckling key keyboard, wireless mouse, and 32" monitor on a desk. Yet, I managed to emulate a VAX 11/780 running OpenVMS 7.2 on it, that I can telnet into, despite the interface limitations. The camera is better than my first real digital camera (Kodak DC210), but nowhere close to my DSLR. The fact that it's in my pocket at all times does make it the "best" camera, of course. Backing out a layer, any interface that's soda-strawed through a web browser and cellular internet, is going to be far less productive than an a native GUI optimized for the desktop. I really hate the fact that there's essentially a gatekeeper deciding what software can be natively written for the phone. We're really close to losing the war for general purpose computing.