In less than 50 minutes, all the folks waiting in line on the West Coast will be buying the first edition of the Apple iPhone. I am not in line, I am not at the Apple store. I thought about it, not to wait for a phone, but to take photos with my Nokia and moblog the event.

As previously documented, I won't be buying an iPhone on this round. I want a competitive megapixel camera, a good lens, and the ability to moblog via email, 3rd party app (flickr, vox, Shozu, Lifeblog, etc.), or MMS. The iPhone only offers a 2 megapixel camera, email, no MMS and not 3rd Party apps.

Since the firmware meltdown of my N80 last week and the fact that I have been unable all week to get a hold of a Nokia Customer Care rep who can help me, I have been diligently watching the iPhone hype / broohaha build to a crescendo, as well as researching Nokia's superior phone / computer : the Nokia N95.

I am more than a little upset at Nokia's inability to provide authentic worldwide Customer Care rather than the byzantine Soviet-style bureaucracy they are currently providing in the name of Customer Care. On top of the inability to get my Nokia N80's repaired this week, I have a choice, either buy a new Nokia N95 to replace the N80 or go to d.Construct 2007 & continue to use my old school Nokia 7610. I love the Brit Pack, but ...

Temptation can be too much.

All of this. All of it. The iPhone hype, the dead N80, the tempting N95, returning to my first love the 7610, the summer sunlight hitting everything in the right light - calling to be moblogged .. all of it is adding up to me asking myself, "What really is your ideal phone?"

Ms. Jen's Dream Phone / Camera, pulling from currently existing mobile phone and camera technologies, or All the Better to Moblog With:

* Carl Zeiss lens or better.
* 8 megapixel camera
* Sensor chip and software that can capture purples and dark blues accurately.
* Auto Focus with a manual option (like the N80) to choice up close or distance focus.
* 10x digital zoom.
* Video capture at the megapixel rating of the lens and digital sensor.
* On board flash.
* Option to add on another flash for night time or concert photography.
* Minimum 256 MB of RAM / Computer memory
* Minimum 8 GB of data storage, either internal or as an external memory chip.
* GPS without any additional software or subscriptions.
* The GPS data will be embedded automatically into the EXIF data of each photo, if the photo is taken outdoors or near a window.
* The ability upon set up of the phone to type in my name, url, and email address into the EXIF data structure that can be added into every photo taken by the the camera automatically.
* Quad band phone so that I can use the phone and data connection anywhere in the world on any network.
* Wifi / WLAN
* Unlocked, so that I can put in a SIM chip anywhere in the world.
* Email.
* MMS.
* SMS / text.
* Full internet browser.
* Ability to turn off images or just receive text on the internet browser if in a country where the data is too dear (hello, Ireland).
* RSS feed reader on the browser so I can keep up with my blog reading wherever I am.
* The ability to make text larger or smaller at any point in the UI.
* The ability to customize the UI by me (wallpaper or even the whole look of the UI)
* Open architecture so that I can install 3rd party apps to add functionality to the phone.
* MP3 player with shuffle and the ability to fast forward and reverse within a song or podcast.
* voice recording and text notes.
* calculator
* Oh, yeah, the phone thing. Bah.

I don't need Office functions or a PDF reader. I don't need calendar functions or an alarm clock. Or many of the other things common to a smart phone that waste memory space.

My Nokia N80 fit most the above bill with the exception of the camera was only 3 megapixels and got purples wrong all the time, it also did not have a feedreader, nor did it have GPS. I could toggle the font in the internet browser, but couldn't in other parts of the UI. The big problem with the Nokia N80 is the on board memory was about 66 megs effectively and my miniSD chip was only 1 GB. The even bigger problem as the time lag that the N80 needed to interface with itself, the external chip, and the camera. Oh, yeah, one would have to reboot every day and some times 2-3x a day to keep it running well. Not so good.

I don't want an office phone, I want a digital artist's phone. I want the quick response of the Nokia 7610 in taking photos and accessing objects in the memory. Give me more on board memory and a bigger logic chip so that the smart phone can be both smart and quick.

Most of all, I really want a camera phone that I can use to access the Internets, post photos to my Movable Type blog without a 3rd party intermediary like Flickr, and the photos are print quality.

A bigger wish, not sure if any of the mobile device or digital camera manufacturers have considered this yet, but it would be lovely if I could choose either by switch or menu whether I want the photo to be 1 or 3 or 5 or 8 megapixels before I take it based on how much memory I have left, what I want to do with it (an MMS would choke on 5-8 megapixels) in the moment or in the long run (moblog immediately, for web later, or for print later).

It would also be lovely to have a high quality camera / smart phone that not only fit well in a woman's hand but was designed as to not cramp up my thumbs trying to type.

Dreaming about moblogging with the best little networked camera phone mini computer.