Keying with the iPhone's virtual keyboard is actually really easy. Once you learn to trust the phone, it becomes very fast. The iPhone takes care of most errors automatically. I find myself missing the auto-correction feature when I'm typing on my computer. It learns words you frequently use... and offers those when you've typed just a few characters of the word. It learns the names of your friends... and offers you the most frequently used choice from your addressbook with just a few letters... or you can keep typing to supply a different name.
My prior phone was a Motorola clamshell flip phone. I had that phone for over two years and could only get the speaker phone to work twice. Both times the feature just suddenly appeared on the screen during a call. On other calls, it didn't ever show up. There was nothing different about the calls. I went through every menu and never found it. I know it existed but I couldn't find it even using the manual. I can't count the number of times I attempted to join another call to an existing call and wound up losing both connections. I am a tech savvy guy. I make my living fixing tech problems for computer users.
Each of those features is drop-dead-easy on an iPhone. They are not hidden under levels and levels of menus.
Want to put a call on hold and answer another incoming call? Super-simple. Just touch the button on the screen that says "Hold Call + Answer". There's another choice, equally easy to understand: "End Call + Answer". And finally, "Ignore Call," which when tapped send the call immediately to voice mail. If you want to conference call with the incoming call? Just tap "Merge Calls." Done.
I can't begin to list the features of the iPhone, because third parties are just now releasing new applications. I can tell you that the web-browser is far beyond the web-browsers on any of the competition's phones.
The iPhone is not just a phone with some added features. It is a complete OS X computer and is capable of doing almost anything a computer can do.
I have owned many phones... but the iPhone is the best phone I have ever owned.
Wow. Thanks. I think you sold me.