with the post this week at Engadget that (possible) manufacturer Hon Hai [has copped] to [having the] iPhone contract. I don’t know where this is really going to go, but the seemingly most reliable reports are that Apple will eschew marketing the device in the traditional manner – through the cellphone carriers – and sell direct to customers who will just put in any SIM card and go.

If this does indeed prove to be the case, it will be a very interesting development. And long overdue.

As far as features are concerned, that might be a tougher sell. I would love a good quality phone that was also a top-quality music machine, but I don’t think that’s enough to really distinguish the device in the marketplace. It seems that a great proportion of the market are current smartphone users – and while I agree with Jobs that phones aren’t necessarily the best input devices, having robust input functionality built in is nevertheless quite important. Synching with a larger device isn’t always possible, so foreclosing on a user’s ability to, say, compose and send a short email or make a quick grocery list would, for me, totally rule out the adoption of an iPhone, even if the “stick it to the cell providers” part does appeal to me.