Given Steve Jobs' hypnotic appeal to consumers, one can expect that every single person in America between the ages of 3 and 100 will soon be using an iPhone to surf the Internet whenever they're away from their computers. And make calls, in the unlikely event their friends aren't logged into Facebook.

They'll soon find that the iPhone doesn't deliver everything that the Web has to offer. It doesn't support Flash, one of the most popular forms of online video. Nor can it play songs or videos in Microsoft's copy-protected Windows Media format. Those limits reflect the trade-offs Apple made in designing the iPhone, and if consumers don't like them, they can buy a competing manufacturer's phone.

There's one other restriction Apple imposes: It won't permit iPhone users to run Internet-phone programs such as Skype through AT&T's network. Instead, they can use them only through the iPhone's WiFi connection, which works in far fewer areas. The rationale is simple: Skype's cheap calls compete with AT&T's voice service.

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