Certain people need to get themselves out of the mental rut they're in.

The rigid, boxed-in mindset that cannot understand anything other than "this is an x" and "this is a y" is going to be left behind and feel increasingly bewildered as tech marches on.

The whole point of what we're witnessing - Apple, Nokia et al - is "convergence". Technology is now so flexible and powerful that we're now making serious attempts and piecing together just the right mix to provide people with an ultra-mobile device that supports as much of their imagination as possible.

A "phone" is just a software implementation. The radio hardware it utilizes is just a physical carrier, nothing more. Networking software/hardware engineers have understood this for decades.

The marvel of the iPhone/iTouch/N900 etc is that they provide excellent computing horsepower in a platform that is now effortlessly present in our lives. No more lugging around a laptop. Everywhere we go we can have a first-class network device (now a full linux platform) with all manner of software to enrich our lives....on-the-go in realtime.

What would be cool is if somebody could figure out how to drive the N900 cellular hardware to provide a SIM-less ad-hoc networking platform. Perfectly plausible.