It's been about four days since I bought the new 3G iPhone, and after a frustrating first few hours in which I couldn't activate it, I'm now up and running.

Before I wrote a review, I wanted to give myself enough time with the iPhone to become familiar with its features. There are volumes of reviews out there, and if you want something incredibly thorough, I recommend you look elsewhere.

Here's just one Milwaukeean's review of this amazing new gadget. Even with its significant shortcomings, the iPhone is far and away the best phone/pda of the many I've owned since 1997.

Pros

Usability: The iPhone interface is unique and astounding. It's not quite an extension of the Mac OS, but it's close. If you use a Mac, you'll pick up the iPhone nuances very quickly. This phone has already transformed the industry, as every competitor is just a cheap knockoff. As usual, Apple proved that it designs the best operating systems in the world.

Third-party apps: This is the deal breaker. Even though the App Store is just a few days old, I've already tried out some amazing programs. AOL Radio offers free streaming radio, and AIM works perfectly. I've also downloaded MLB At Bat and a handful of other cool applications. I've even used a beta version of a voice-over-IP application that lets me use my home wi-fi to make calls. Over time, this will only get better.

Auto-correct: Typing is hard and inaccurate, at least for me for now, but the auto correct feature is nothing short of psychic. No matter how badly I goof up, it fixes my work. If this could be integrated into a word processing program, and I mean better that what Microsoft Word already does, I'd be the fastest typist in the world. I can't say enough about how good this is.

3G: I haven't found myself in too many areas that are served by AT&T 3G network, but where it works, it's quite fast. Not wi-fi fast, but close.

GPS: I'm not sure how much I'll use this, at least until an application is developed for real-time driving directions that can actually be used while driving. But I tried it this weekend Up North, and it did a nice job of tracking my location -- though the network was too slow to draw the maps and keep up with the car in motion.

Call quality: Despite the atrocious AT&T cell phone coverage in Milwaukee, when the phone works, it sounds great on both sides of the conversation. Compared to my last two Blackberries (one on AT&T and the other on Verizon), the iPhone sounds like I'm talking on a landline -- even with one bar, which is most of the time.

Cons

Reception: Before, I could barely use my AT&T cell phone in my Bay View home. Now I can't use it at all. Not only does the iPhone not work inside or on my porch, it doesn't do a very good switching between no coverage and a little coverage. For an amazing phone, it's being utterly wasted, at least in Milwaukee, where network coverage is so very spotty. If AT&T can get its network up to speed, every other fault on the iPhone could easily be overlooked.

Hard to type on: Even though the auto-correct is amazing, it's still tricky to type on keys that have no tactile feedback. Maybe I'll get used to it, but for now, it takes forever to pound out a sentence.

Weird syncing issues: Because all of the administration goes through iTunes, it gets a little clunky when trying to manually sync between multiple computers. For example, I wanted to include photos from both my work computer and home laptop. Unfortunately, I can choose one or the other. It's probably the most counterintuitive portion of an otherwise smooth user experience.

Crashes: Starting this morning, some of the third-party applications have been crashing intermittently. I think the very first iPhones are actually using a beta version of the firmware, but without restoring the phone to its factory default, I can't upgrade to the new version. I'm sure this will get worked out, and for now, hard restarts seem to clear up the problem.

Weak camera / no video / no picture messaging: The iPhone offers a puny two megapixel camera without a flash, advanced settings or extra features. That said, the quality is pretty good. It's also sorely lacking a video recorder, but I'm sure a third-party developer will whip something up very quickly.

No "delete all," "copy and paste," voice dialing or one-touch favorites: For all of its amazing usability, the iPhone is missing some very basic features. You can't delete all your e-mail messages with one click, which is annoying if you accumulate a few hundred messages in your inbox. There's no "copy and paste" feature, which is ridiculous: I already found myself missing it when a coworker texted me asking for someone's phone number. The iPhone doesn't support voice dialing, which phones I had back in '98 handled with ease. And it takes several clicks to dial a favorite, which is impossible when not looking at the phone, in the car, for example. These are all software upgrades that are surely coming, hopefully soon.