Tom Kaneshige reports for InfoWorld, “The iPhone, the tech symbol of the ‘in’ crowd, is on the verge of crossing the line into AIG-like excess and arrogance. ‘I’m not sure, under the current economic conditions, that it’s a great statement to make,’ says Rob Enderle, principal analyst of the Enderle Group. ‘You may not want to flash it.’”

MacDailyNews Take: The real question is where do you hide the BMW amidst the myriad soup lines of “The Great Depression II?”

“Yet the iPhone’s cultural impact is much more than just another wedge separating the haves and have-nots; the iPhone changes how people interact with each other and their surroundings. Traditional cell phones and iPods already audibly isolated people in their own little worlds, and iPhone’s visual carnival pushes that isolation further,” Kaneshige reports.

Kaneshige reports, “The visual nature of the iPhone can be a big distraction. Will consumers, walking around with their heads down as they play a game or look at a map on the iPhone’s mini-screen, collide with each other like pinballs?”

Full article here.

[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader "scopie" for the heads up.]

Kaneshige’s deadline must have caught him by surprise.