I admit it. I want an iPhone. And, there really isn’t anything to stop me from getting one.

Fact is, I have used a whole bunch of PDAs, cell phones, music players and convergence devices and all that over the years. I loves me my gadgets. I also tend to use all of the bells and whistles. I customize, set settings, use every kind of photo, contact list, notepad, alarm clock, calendar, wallpaper, ringtone function that can be keyed in or computer sync’ed.

Ultimately, I also get comfortable with limitations. I mean no gadget yet has replaced the battery-operated, Japanese vibrator.

One thing that has always blown when I’ve worked toward convergence, though, is that I favor the Macintosh computers and to date PC-syncing has been ahead. Even the universal Palm with it’s own language, and the old-school Handspring organizers, which I dug before Palm ditched everything but the Treo, all worked. They just lacked that certain je ne c’est pas of native integration.

Shiny and new could be my gadget solution. Or another toy I will figure out, work through, use to its fullest for a couple of years and then figure something else out.

Whilst thinking through all of this hyper-rationalization for a consumer goods jones, I spotted one in the real world. The web is all sorts of full of rumors about folks eyeing them in the hands of testers littering Silicon Valley, mostly at restaurants.

Sure ‘nough, they’re in my neighborhood in the wild, just like the rumor sites claim. A tableful of people (well the dudes at the table not the womenfolk they were accompanying) were passing it about and surfing the web and pressing shiny virtual buttons.

Right there it was, two tables away as they waited for their gourmet burgers and fries in Palo Alto, as M. and I finished ours. I had to wipe drool of my chin, straighten up and go home.