John Markoff has an odd non-article in today’s NYT. He appears to be obsessed with the iPhone’s lack of a mechanical keyboard.

The keyboard, however, is the biggest worry. At worst, customers will return the products. Currently AT&T gives customers 30 days to return handsets, but it is not clear whether it will maintain that policy for the iPhone. Any significant number of returns of the iPhone could conceivably undermine what until now has been a remarkable promotional blitzkrieg that culminates in the phone’s release June 29…

He’s way off beam. The biggest deficiency of the iPhone, to my mind, is the fact that you can’t replace the battery. In that sense, it’s an iPod clone. Will people pay $500 for a device they have to return to base when its battery gives up the ghost? We’ll see.