That seems to be the question as of late. With Apple’s marketing saavy and an eager fan base hoping for the next revolution in mobile technology, the iPhone has quickly gained an almost cult-like following - without even being released yet! An amazing feat for sure!

So six months after its initial “introduction” to the world, the iPhone is finally reaching eager hands on Friday at 6pm, and in typical Apple fashion, the event is surrounded by secrecy and anticipation. So the question is, should you take the (gulp) $600 leap? Or should you wait it out until the hype dies down a bit and Mr. Job’s Reality Distortion Field fades a little?

Well, if you’re a techno-goob like me - and you happen to have $600 lying around (not like me) - then why the heck not! After all, the iPhone’s web browser and cool multi-touch interface are enough to make anyone drool! But if you’re still unsure about it, check out some of the early reviews that have been pouring in! Mr. Mossberg seems to give it a thumbs up, and if that’s not enough to make up your mind, there are any number of reviews out there that might be more to your liking.

So will I make the leap? Honestly, I’d love to! But the idea of changing networks and dropping that kind of cash on a phone makes me cringe. Perhaps generation two? I will tell you this…I’ll be sure to get my grubby little hands on one of these as soon as I can - I just need to experience the multi-touch interface for myself!

And for those of you crazy enough to start making a line 4 days before the event…well, you make us proud! Techno-goobs forever!!!!

Recently I received an email invitation from an old friend and colleague to join the LinkedIn network. This is not the first time I have received such an invitation and I was very tempted to doom it to my spam box - I will tell you why I didn’t.

Also recently, I was at a management meeting with my current employer in which we discussed new trends in the interactive arena. He explained that in our career we must pay close attention to trends not only of an interactive nature, but in every aspect of our daily lives. By keeping your eyes and ears open, you can be well-informed on what’s going on around you - and more importantly, if you want to jump in the wagon. He also expressed that a good rule of thumb to follow is that whenever you see three things in close proximity of each other, you have a very likely candidate that something trendy is happening. Well…I have received, read about, and heard about LinkedIn at least three times - so I’m jumping in.

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Since its introduction, Urchin has been a great tool for analyzing usage patterns on your web sites. With Google’s acquiring of the Urchin tool, it has gained a lot in terms of functionality and more importantly - usability. Now that Google Analytics (free) has rolled out its shiny new interface, it makes things even more interesting.

I must confess, at first I found the new interface just as confusing as the first, but it doesn’t take long to get used to it and fall in love with data analysis! One thing that has been showing its ugly head a lot lately is the need for Flash event measurements.

As many of you know, Flash has always presented some challenges when it comes to SEO and overall data metrics - since it’s not native to HTML. There are a number of ways to circumvent these issues - which I will not get into at the moment - but almost all of them are pretty complicated, buggy, time intensive, etc. In essence, they make life in Flash even more difficult than it already is.

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Well, a lot happened in the world of tech today - at least in Apple’s world of tech. Sure, there was a bit of a disappointment at the lack of hardware introduction during today’s Stevenote, however, His Steveness did introduce a new item that I think will affect us interactive designers. As a matter of fact, I believe Apple may have just made our lives a little more difficult…or maybe not. We shall see.

With today’s introduction of a Windows-compatible public beta for Safari, I quickly started running through development nightmares in my mind. I’m not what I would consider a well-seasoned CSS developer, but I know enough to be quite dangerous at it - and one thing that became painfully apparent during my first projects using all CSS layouts, was the vast differences in browser renderings between platforms. And of course, all of you who have done ANY CSS at all know who I’m talking about (yes, the infamous IEv6).

So needless to say, I’m a bit nervous that yet another browser has been introduced into this seemingly never-ending saga. I’m hoping that it uses essentially the same rendering engine (WebKit) as Safari for Mac, but I’m curious to know what kinds of “quirks” it might introduce when dealing with fonts…as PCs and Macs deal with these little rodents quite differently.

On that note…I also found it curious that there wasn’t much more said about the iPhone’s “development” environment - if you can call it that. Perhaps I need a little more schooling in the land of AJAX, but as far as I know, Web 2.0 and AJAX are hardly worthy SDK candidates…especially for a cell phone. I wonder if this was a typical Apple cop-out of “let’s give them something so they shut up.” What a bummer. I was hoping that someone as innovative as Apple would understand the importance of letting people develop in this largely un-tapped market that is cell phones. (And by largely un-tapped, I mean development of applications that actually work correctly…and well…and by and large, that are well designed - as opposed to the 98% of Java crap that’s out there today). Phew…I think I had a bit to say about that.

For those of you who have been keeping tabs on Adobe’s Apollo application (and you should be keeping tabs on this), Adobe has just posted a public beta of the application and has also changed its name to AIR (Adobe Integrated Runtime). If you’re unfamiliar with Apollo (Air) it is an application environment that allows your HTML, Actionscript, and AJAX skills to be deployed as full desktop applications. If you’ve been at any of Adobe’s recent keynotes, you will surely hear mention of Apollo/AIR - which means they’re dropping some serious $$ on development of this app. I’m excited to see where this goes from here!