I have seen the iPhone and I want one. After watching the iPhone being unveiled at the 2007 Macworld convention keynote, my wow factor indicator shot off the scale. This tiny handheld device is what you'd expect to see if you somehow woke up 5 years later and looked at a cell phone. But it's here now or rather it will be here in June after the FCC gives its blessing according to Apple's CEO. I've been watching Steve Jobs' keynotes for many years now but for the first time you could sense this unveiling was truly an emotional moment for him. And after you see one of these phones up close and personal, you'll understand why its parent is a deservingly proud one.

The iPhone is a melding of several cutting-edge technologies that produce a singular device that's a quantum leap over anything available today. And yes, that was a play on words as it works exclusively on the Cingular network. This exclusivity was motivated by technology rather than just a financial one since Apple could only make some of the special communication features work if they had the cooperation of the carrier. The Visual Voice Mail feature is just such an example of that cooperation. This feature allows you to randomly access the voice messages you want to hear rather than having to sequentially listen to them one at a time. The iPhone displays each message listed with the person's name, number and any other contact information you may have about them in your computer's synchronized address book such as their picture. You just touch the ones you want to hear.

The iPhone is actually three devices in one. It's the world's most advanced iPod, it's an incredibly advanced cell phone and a full- blown Internet access device. I say full-blown because none of its Internet abilities such as email and browsing are watered down.

That's because the iPhone runs Apple's OS X. So not only do you get X's powerful housekeeping functions but you also get desktop quality applications. Take the web browser for example. It's Apple's Safari web browser but it actually does more than the one running on a Mac.

Just touch its widescreen multi-touch display with your finger to magnify any portion of the page or use a pinching gesture to zoom in and out. You can even have multiple pages open at the same time which you select with your finger. And when you tilt the iPhone on its side, the built-in accelerometer automatically re-orients the images from portrait to landscape and back when you hold it straight up. Don't forget email because you have that as well. This is the first handheld device that give you full access to these Internet applications in pretty much the same way as you would with your computer.

The newly designed user interface is controlled with your fingers.

There's only one mechanical button on the face of the iPhone and that's to bring you back to the home screen. Every other button or slider is virtual. To scroll up and down, just give the 3.5 inch color screen a flick of your finger in the corresponding direction and watch the images flow by with a balanced, liquid smooth animation. You could play all day with that one feature alone and you probably will. Navigation on the iPhone is in itself a thing of beauty.

Let's not forget that this is also a cell phone. It uses quad-band GSM + EDGE to make your voice calls as well as SMS messaging in multiple sessions with a virtual, predictive keyboard that corrects and prevents typing mistakes. You can dial using a virtual dial pad but the iPhone really stands out when you use your built-in address book that syncs to the data on your computer. Watching a second caller being conferenced during the keynote demonstration was a real treat. Everything that's taking place is literally spelled out for you on the screen.

As with the iPod, the iPhone comes with its own dock which you can use to both recharge, and synchronize it to a wide variety of data on your computer via Apple's iTune application. Access to the iTunes store is there for you as well. As to its size, it's 4.5 by 2.4 by a mere .46 inches thick and fits nicely in your hand. It weighs 4.8 ounces. It's proximity detector senses when you hold it up to your ear and turns off the multi-touch screen when it's touching your face. The ambient lighting sensor keeps the screen's brightness at optimum and helps to save its 5 hour talk/video/browsing or 16 hour audio playback battery life. And while it's built-in 2 megapixel digital camera lets you capture images, it's the iPhone's video application that lets you manage and display them quickly and easily. You can play full motion videos such as popular TV shows and movies with on-screen navigation controls that appear when you need them and vanish when you're done.

Other items around the iPhone's edges include a built-in speaker and microphone, a headphone jack that uses any iPod earbuds, a ring/ silence button, SIM card slot and a sliding volume control. It even has Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.

Two versions, a 4 and 8 gigabyte model will be made available at $499 and $599 respectively with a two year contract. As the release date of the iPhone approaches, I'm sure I'll be writing more about this amazing little device. So let me place you on hold and I'll get right back to you. And hopefully, that will be on my own iPhone.