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The Wii Remote is a case in point – it’s active, involving, and despite being wireless makes you feel more connected to the machine you’re controlling. Yet really it’s quite primitive, especially when you compare it to something really next gen – if you haven’t seen Jeff Han’s demo of a multi touch interface then you really are missing something. It actually went up a year ago but I must admit I just found it when researching for this piece.

It’s very cool, and as Han (what a great name) says, Google should have something like it in its lobby. You use your fingers and hands directly on the screen and there are no icons or ‘Windows’. To quote Han, “the interface just disappears”. You can hear the ooh and aahs of the audience as they react to what he’s doing, zooming in and out of the globe, moving images around or manipulating shapes.

Someone who was clearly watching was Microsoft, who has recently launched the Surface a table that uses similar technology to that Han showed off a year ago to great affect. (It probably won’t be appearing in Google’s lobby though). One of the most impressive effects is the way you can manipulate pictures and video with your fingers. Touch a picture, move your fingers apart and the picture expands like a rubber band. But while Microsoft’s Surface will be limited to hotels, restaurants and casinos, mostly down to its huge cost, Apple is putting out a device that uses multi touch in our hands, or at least well-heeled (palmed?) US hands, at the end of this month. It is a next generation technology that’s here right now. I think that’s impressive and I’m not going to apologise for thinking so.

I find it very telling that since the iPhone was announced the market has been seemingly flooded with copy cat devices. LG’s Prada and HTC’s Touch both go down the similar no keypad and touch screen interface, but underneath they are ordinary phones with tacked on touch interfaces. I’ve had a quick play with the Touch – it’s one of the most desperate products I’ve seen in a long time. The form factor is quite good and the whizzy touch screen stuff is quite cool, but once you’re past those initial screens you’re presented with the mundane reality of Windows Mobile and out comes the stylus. It doesn’t feel organic or natural as the demos of the iPhone clearly do.

But yet while Apple is clearly setting the consumer technology benchmark many are almost by principle, anti Apple and anti iPhone. This is as irrational as my taking exception to Mercedes, despite the fact that like the Teutonic car giant, Apple is an innovator in its field, that leads where others inevitably follow.

It will probably be some time before I get my hands on an iPhone to see with my own eyes and fingers if it does live up to the hype. Even if it does I might not get one, due to the fact that it will be a) very expensive, and b) not have a bracket that will fit my car phone kit, which currently works very nicely with my K800i, thankyouverymuch. But until I do see it then I reserve the right to be unfeasibly excited about its arrival, even if I run the risk of being accused of Apple Fanboism, or 'Pomaceous Fanaticism', as I rather wonderfully saw it described as on one forum.

Right Apple, after all that, the iPhone had better not be rubbish. And I still don’t like Mercedes.

Addendum: I’ve just remembered that the owner of TrustedReviews.com drives a Mercedes. Oh dear. As they used to say to those about to go into performance appraisals on a magazine I used to work at: “it was nice working with you”.

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