Why I'll Wait for Apple iPhone 2.0 in May

As exciting as Apple's iPhone is, I'll wait for the second rev, anticipated in May or June for several reasons.

While the iPhone is arguably the best iPod to date (for users that don't need the larger storage of the Classic), it isn't really a great phone -- yet.

Apple's iPhone Shuffle

Since the speculation on Apple creating a smaller phone , an iPhone-Nano or some such, appears baseless and random, let's just make something up.

Here's what we do know: Jobs hates keypads so he will put a regular phone keypad on an iPhone at about the same time he puts a floppy disk-drive back in the Mac. Secondly, Apple lacks voice-recognition-dialing software, otherwise voice commands would be in today's iPhone, which badly needs it.

Apple Sub-Notebook in Jan, 3G iPhone in May/June?

CNBC's Jim Goldman predicted yesterday that the rumored Apple sub-notebook has already gone into production and will be "unveiled" in January, 2007 at an Apple conference and the 3G version of the iPhone can be expected by mid-year.

Rumors claim this super-portable will use flash memory for storage, instead of a hard disk, and sport a 12- or 13.5-inch screen, making it extremely thin, and lightweight. Speculation is round half-an-inch, under 2 pounds, and a price of under $1,500. Here's Goldman's video.

The most widespread criticism of Apple's iPhone has been reliance on the slow AT&T EDGE network, rather than HSDPA.

Hulu Promises HD Video Online

While it is easy to be skeptical about commercial TV's Web exploits, first previews of Hulu, a video sharing service for professional video show promise.

Hulu is only accepting a limited number of beta users at this point, but is displaying some HD 1280 x 720 video, using the H.264 code for compression, and a player that offers ability to quickly and easily grab segments from commercial TV shows, to email or post. A slider-control on the player allows users to select the specific scene they want directly in the player.

Verizon Announcements Promise Better Phones

Verizon customers will get faster phones that can roam in Europe and Asia as well as work on AT&T's network.

Verizon Wireless made two announcements last week that will result in more choices of faster phones and services. The first, is the widely-reported decision to open its mobile network to others' devices, while the second, which was generally overlooked, amplifies the significance of the open network.

Verizon will use Long Term Evolution for its so-called fourth generation high-speed network.