Apparently nothing -- nothing at all -- comes close to being as important as the pending arrival in stores of the new MP3 player/mobile phone/web browser known as the iPhone.

Genuflect when you say that.

I remember the first Star Wars sequel. I once waited in line for 12 hours to be the second person into a Peter Gabriel concert at the Greek Theater in Berkeley, CA. I understand obsession.

I also love to shop, and love my own 60 gig video iPod so much I once kissed it. In front of witnesses. And yet, I'm not feeling the iPhone love.

There was a day I thought that if someone could give me a way to integrate my iPod with my cell phone and let me check email, I'd know perfect and complete joy. "Soon," my techno-geek friends promised. "Apple is making it. It's called the iPhone and it will be all you could ever imagine and more."

Is it? I freaked out when I saw its storage listed as 5 gigs or 8 gigs. Honey, I have 60 gigs now, over half of which is in use, and no offense, but suddenly having to carry an iPod and a cell phone doesn't seem all that onerous to me. What am I supposed to do with the other 22 gigs of music, Steve?

Then there's the problem of the money. It supposedly will cost around $75-100 a month to use the proprietary phone service, plus a $36 activation fee, and the iPhone itself costs $5376587 dollars.

Okay, that was a lie. But it's going to list for around $500-600.

Then there are the reviews. From the Wall Street Journal's highly influential Walter Mossberg:

We have been testing the iPhone for two weeks, in multiple usage scenarios, in cities across the country. Our verdict is that, despite some flaws and feature omissions, the iPhone is, on balance, a beautiful and breakthrough handheld computer. Its software, especially, sets a new bar for the smart-phone industry, and its clever finger-touch interface, which dispenses with a stylus and most buttons, works well, though it sometimes adds steps to common functions.

The Apple phone combines intelligent voice calling, and a full-blown iPod, with a beautiful new interface for music and video playback. It offers the best Web browser we have seen on a smart phone, and robust email software. And it synchronizes easily and well with both Windows and Macintosh computers using Apple’s iTunes software.

It has the largest and highest-resolution screen of any smart phone we’ve seen, and the most internal memory by far. Yet it is one of the thinnest smart phones available and offers impressive battery life, better than its key competitors claim.

The phone is thinner than many smart phones.

It feels solid and comfortable in the hand and the way it displays photos, videos and Web pages on its gorgeous screen makes other smart phones look primitive.

From USA Today's Edward C. Baig:

For consumers who can afford one ($499 or $599, plus the cost of a two-year wireless plan with exclusive carrier AT&T), iPhone is by far the most chic cellphone I've seen. And there are terrific reasons — besides announcing to neighbors how cool you are — to try to nab the device when it finally goes on sale at Apple and AT&T stores at 6 p.m. local time Friday across the country.

For starters, iPhone is a breeze to set up and fun to use, evident from the moment you slide your finger across the screen to unlock it. It's a wonderful widescreen iPod and fabulous picture viewer. Smart sensors change the orientation of the display from portrait to landscape mode, based on how you hold the device and what you are doing at the time. Once you get the hang of its "multitouch" interface — give it a few days — you won't have to schlep a separate iPod and cellphone in your pocket.

For me, the limited storage is a deal killer, even if I had a spare five hundred bucks to replace a perfectly good iPod and cell phone. I've also heard it's got some slowness problems on its mobile network. But for those who don't carry around such a large music library who absolutely have to have the latest and best thing ever, and who have the bucks, it sounds like this toy might be one of the few to live up to its hype.

Video under the jump.

From the San Francisco Chronicle:

Internet radio DJs are replacing their eclectic playlists with a "Day of Silence" today, a protest against new royalty rates they say could decimate the fledgling digital broadcasting industry.

Earlier this year, a congressionally appointed three-judge panel drastically increased the royalty fees the stations must pay for music streamed over the Internet. Critics say the rates, which would be retroactive to 2006, will make it impossible for small stations, public broadcasters and specialty startups that cater to the industry to stay in business. The new rates are scheduled to go into effect July 15.

"For us, the royalties went from $20,000 to $600,000 per year," said Rusty Hodge, whose 11-channel SomaFM Web site was launched in 2000 and operates in San Francisco's Mission District. "That's about three times the total income we made in 2006. We're not getting rich off of this."

Read the whole article here.