I, almost embarrassed to admit it, bought an iPhone 3G the other day, after much prompting/begging from my wife to obtain a pair for our "Christmas presents". Originally, I had my eye on the more open (and keyboarded) G1, however T-Mobile's network is very bad here (inconsistent EDGE max).

I'll state this from the get-go: I have a very very large distaste for Apple as a company. In many ways, I am almost your key Apple anti-fan-boy. Now, with this said, I'll relay my experience with this iPhone for the last few days (Note - I very easily jailbroke the phone in about 5 minutes - so my experience likely is different than those whom bow to Apple's dictations):

a) As Randomshack stated, the iPhone does make a better mp3 player than my n800 in both ease of use and quality of sound. I am not sure I would agree with the battery length - however the iPhone likely is much more of a juice sucker than the Touch.

b) My iPhone, with Fring, can do Skype VoIP. Normally, this is limited to only with WiFi, however there are "unofficial" third party apps that will allow it to be done over G3.

c) Mail - In "general", the iPhone's mail app is simpler to use than the various apps I used on the N800. For simple checking mail and responding, it excels. It easily connects to both my gmail account and my corporate Exchange server. While of not apples to apples, the perk of having push email anywhere rocks. Now the downside: the iPhone's mail app is limiting. There is less functionality than that of the various n800 options. It is slightly less pleasant to read, due to increased scrolling. But for 90% of the function, it is easier/faster.

d) Chat - Fring does pretty much all common chat programs. The Backgrounder "unofficial" app allows for running any program in the background. Hence, Fring can stay persistently running on the iPhone. With that said, screen real estate can be an issue on the iPhone.

e) Browser - The iPhone's browser "feels" faster at loading. With that said, playing the constant "magnification game" doesn't make for a long term pleasant browsing experience. While fun at first, it gets old. The n800's high resolution screen rocks on most sites, and it's flash support is yet another perk. To note, on iPhone enabled sites, the iPhone does excel. Also to note, many of the larger sites have specific iPhone native apps as an alternative.

f) Keyboard - On screen keyboards suck in general and each time I look to buy a new pocketable toy I swear it must have a keyboard, yet I haven't ever bought one. With that said, I do have to say I prefer the iPhone's keyboard (even in portrait mode) over the n800's. Speed wise, I can type much quicker with it. I suppose truth be told, the full screen keyboard on the n800 would be as easy or easier, however I don't like that it reverts to a different screen. (Side note: I would *love* to see an iPhone app to emulate a BT Keyboard to be used with my Nokia!)

g) iTunes - Heck with it - I don't use it for much. For transfering files, I either just scp into my iPhone (yes, there is OpenSSH for iPhone as an "unofficial" app) or use iPhoneBrowser for Windows to drop in files - anywhere I want - not just where Apple dictates I can touch files.

h) Boingo - Never used it under the Nokia - however to note: AT&T provides free Wifi access to iPhones at any of their hotspots (e.g. Starbucks, McDonalds, Airports, etc.) - mighty useful!

i) Video - This is a frustrating bit - ideally, the Nokia would be a GREAT video player with it's high-rez screen if 1) Nokia used a better framebuffer and 2) Nokia would pay for the damned license for the HW video accel. Realistically, most downloaded videos need to be converted for either device, however the iPhone supports a much higher bitrate than the n800. I noticed mPlayer and VLC are available for the iPhone - I haven't tested these on it yet, but for mp4's, the iPhone performs beautifully with the built in player.

j) Applications - Looking at the applications available for the iPhone, there is a startling array. Within the Appstore, there is just a huge quantity (although, mostly paid for but cheap - average seems $1-$2)). A lot are utter crap, but there are some really unique ones. But this is just the start of the fun. Apple, in their domineering ways, only allow apps that they approve of in the appstore. The fun gets all the better with Cydia, an "unofficial", apt based file distribution program. This is where all the apps that Apple won't approve of end up, and also the place that can make the iPhone into a real platform. Here, you have things like OpenSSH, teathering programs, terminals to the underlying BSD shell, GCC, Java Classpath, Python, Ruby, Sudo, VLC, mPlayer, etc. (The lists of applications on the default repositories look very similar to the applications availble for the n800). In many ways, the applications are more refined than the n800 equivillents - for the most part everything has a consistent UI. I haven't tried most of the development based applications, but it appears there are real possibilities to develop without buying into the Apple monopoly.

k) PIM - Sorry, I never have been fond of any of the available Maemo PIM software and I have to say, I am a bit shocked how well the iPhone's did work. The contacts can sync from gmail and Outlook. Meeting requests sent to me via my company exchange server get added to the calendar (which also can sync with google calendar and outlook). Really, I think it is superior to the PIM experience I had with my old Palm E.

l) Games - The n800 has a few decent games, no doubt, but it's gaming capabilities is not it's main focus by any means (now if Nokia ever made drivers for the capabilities of the device....). The iPhone has a hoard of games. Some, are pretty bad on all fronts. Some are graphically beautiful, however they are more "traditional" games slapped into the iPhone with very poor emulation of typical control schemes (onscreen control pads suck. Driving by tilting sucks.) Some, however, are designed for the capabilities of the iPhone and these often have very amazing and new gaming experience, utilizing the multi-touch and tilt in pleasing ways. Overall, the iPhone seems to be a better game platform, however, Apple is smoking some good stuff if they thing they will bankrupt Nintendo and Sony by competing against the DS and PSP. Real hardware buttons are needing for a full broad ranged gaming experience.

All in all, I love my n800. I love it's beautiful high resolution screen. I love the spirit of open source software that it brings. I love the fact I can hack it to my heart's content, without anybody saying "Hey, you shouldn't do that". I love that it can, slowly, bring a desktop experience in the palm of my hand.

I am also starting to have a warm spot for the iPhone. I like it's unique capabilities with multi-touch. I like the beauty of style of most of it's software. I like the fact I can toss a big middle finger up at Apple and take ownership of it away from them and back to myself with easy-to-perform jailbreaking. I like still being connected anywhere I go, with or without wifi.

Some of my main interests right now is to get teathering working between the two. If I could get the iPhone to act as a BT (or other) keyboard with the Nokia, that would be great also (I suspect, if nothing else, I could utilize VNC for the iPhone to do this).

I think both devices have good merit and in a lot of ways, could complement each other. End result:

Nokia n800 Pros:
- Much much better LCD Screen.
- More convenient and cheap media (SD Cards)
- Easy to port desktop Linux apps to (although, often these apps work sub-par on the NIT)
- More capabilities within common applications.
- Easier, more defined development options.
- Runs Linux
- Better browser

iPhone Pros:
- Much much better touch screen.
- Faster access to the large built in storage
- More "refined" UI and professional looking/working apps.
- Easier/faster to use Applications.
- Runs BSD
- Better Media playing