I just read the announcement of the Apple iPhone and my head is spinning. The device is jammed packed with good ideas and is beautifully styled. Here’s a bunch of clever people radically and bravely thinking about the problems we all have not just with phones and music players, but mainstream portable electronics.

I thought my old Nokia was pretty nifty, if a bit slow and unreliable, and my Sony Ericsson is much better. I’ve played with some Windows handsets and they’re much the same. But the iPhone is leagues, fathoms, miles, light years ahead of these. Next to the iPhone the current batch of smartphones come across as smart as a house brick talking politics at dinner.

Argh! My cell phone is corporate suited plastic lump of curdled boredom! It represents the product of a permeating lack of innovation, meddling from middle management, committee thinking, unmotivated staff, a “can’t do” culture, a, a … hang on, I lost myself thinking about the Great Seattle Graveyard of Imagination. Actually, my phone is fine and works well, but it has been utterly utterly outclassed by Apple’s iPhone.

I think Apple exceeded the hype: suddenly, every other phone on the planet looks so very old.

Update: seems like it was only at first sight. Apple might have practiced some Microsoft Innovation courtesy of LG.