Cool People Have iPhones

Since returning to Boston, I've run into three people with iPhones. First, David Rose of Ambient, then Tabblo founder Antonio Rodriguez, and last night, at the Best of Boston party, Plutomedia honcho Pat Mitchell, who paged through some beautiful images he'd created for a new magazine concept that I hope gets launched very soon. (Pat was the design genius behind Fast Company.)

None of these people say that the iPhone is very good as a phone, or an e-mail device, or as a Web access device when connected to AT&T's 0.005 G data network. But it's good for two things: surfing the Web when connected to a WiFi network, and showing off to jealous people who don't have an iPhone.

The iPhone is clearly the Rolex watch for techies.

I told Rodriguez that I couldn't believe that Apple had signed a five-year exclusive deal with AT&T, and predicted that sales will plateau: how many people really want to switch their wireless service to AT&T in order to own a status symbol? Rodriguez had an interesting prediction: Steve Jobs will figure out a way to do an end-run around that exclusive, perhaps by introducing a new or slightly different version of the phone that another carrier will be allowed to market.

(An update: Yonald Chery has one, too.)