Biggest day ever

This is Engadget.

This is Engadget when Apple launches a new iPhone. Any questions?

Thanks again to everyone who stopped by today to read our coverage of the iPhone 3G launch — it’s always an extraordinary amount of fun and a real honor to be the go-to place for big news in the gadget world.

And yes, I was fortunate enough to play with it and definitely can’t wait to really put the spurs to one.

Engadget: now AOL’s largest iPhone magnet

We don’t usually get very granular about traffic stats (I find that conversation kind of trite and even a little gauche), but you can imagine my surprise when the following iPhone usage chart hit my inbox this week. (Okay, I admit, I wasn’t that surprised.) Throughout AOL’s extensive and heavily trafficked content network, Engadget has the most pages served to users on iPhones by a pretty significant margin. To put that in context, the absolute monster that is AOL News (number two on the graph) will do some 10-15x our page views on any given day. Dayumn. Still, I’m resistant to do an iPhone specific version of the site — if it’s supposed to be “the real internet in your pocket” why design a version specifically for it, you know? What do you think?

Questioning iPhone SIM unlocking on the App Store: is the obvious unimportant?

Funny thing, I’ve been getting some small bit of, um, commentary today for asking Steve Jobs a question we all well know the answer to: would Apple allow its developer community to disseminate SIM unlock software on the App Store? I guess the criticism is that it’s a wasted question and a lapse of journalistic judgment to even bother asking — after all, of course it won’t be allowed, jeez. Clearly.

But even knowing the answer would be a resounding no, asking whether SIM unlock software would be allowed can be construed as a statement — as well as and an opportunity for Apple to address the millions of potential customers who’d like to be able to use an iPhone on a non-prescribed carrier. Is Apple going to facilitate the process of breaking its carrier exclusivity agreements by helping distribute that software? Of course not. But it’s important to recognize that these also constitute decisions Apple has made which ultimately limit consumer choice — so why shouldn’t they have an opportunity to account for those decisions?

Not that I would ever compare this kind of trivial stuff to the gravitas of political journalists covering the goings-on of the government, but should White House reporters stop asking Bush when we’ll withdraw from Iraq just because they know the answer will be the same every time they ask? No — and they keep on asking, year after year.

Obvious question with an obvious answer? Totally. Fruitless to ask? I don’t think so.

The iPhone’s long-missing two-pane email client

So I was looking over my Macworld 2007 keynote coverage the other day and noticed something just about everyone — myself included — glossed over as the months passed between its January introduction and June launch: the iPhone once had a two-pane email client. (You can even see the view mode selector up top! This later became the edit button.)

Anyone who knows me and my email-addicted ways knows how desperately I loathe the iPhone’s mail client, and, given its frequency of use, how much I wish they’d improve it. Apple: three simple steps to make email nerds like me happy.

1. Add delete for multiple / all messages.
2. Fix the annoying bug that just lets the iPhone idle while some HTML messages are not downloaded / parsed.
3. Give us (back) the two-pane view mode!

That’s not so hard, now is it? One more minor email client diff after the break. More…

Guess what’s going to win 2007 Gadget of the Year

Today I kicked off possibly my favorite Engadget activity of the year and opened up nominations for the 2007 Engadget Awards. Part of the rules of nominating a gadget for the award, though — as outlined TWICE in bold text — is that you shouldn’t nominate the same gadget more than once. Most people don’t, but some gadget fanboys don’t pay attention, or seem to think the nomination process accounts for voting (it doesn’t), so they nominate and renominate, etc.

Well, for those already starting a pool and placing bets on the Engadget Awards, it might interest you to know that the iPhone has already been nominated for Gadget of the Year about 60 70 80+ times. Not that I’m shocked! (Thus far the second best is the Asus Eee PC, with under 10.) And no, this isn’t an invitation to renominate your fave gadget — we’re deleting all these extra iPhone noms as they come through.