As the frenzy builds over the iPhone -- Apple's entry into the crowded market of music- and video-enabled cellphones -- more information is coming out from early reviewers and details being released about the device's specifications.

The iPhone is reputed to be beautiful and have an easy-to-use interface, but the phone's capabilities lag behind those of many other devices on the market. Consumers willing to live with those limitations (not to mention the high price tag) should love using the iPhone, but those who have come to expect more from a pocket device -- including a fast connection to the Internet -- are likely to be disappointed.

Apple has built a reputation for making expensive consumer devices with phenomenal interfaces -- Bentleys in a world of Fords.

The iPod is the best example. In 2001, the now-ubiquitous music player burst onto a market filled with first-generation devices. It had a look and feel years ahead of the competition, and today it commands more than 80 percent of the portable music-player market.

But the iPhone is entering a very different market -- one filled with mature products that have been refined and improved for decades.

In this arena, the iPhone's capabilities are behind the curve.

It doesn't support high-speed cellphone networks, it can't download music wirelessly (despite being a music player), it offers a watered-down version of the Internet, its battery isn't replaceable, and users can't add additional storage.

A litany like that might be a turnoff for any other company's product. But the iPhone comes from Apple, whose users have been described as a "cult." (There's even a best-selling book on the subject, "The Cult of Mac.")

The iPhone, like most Apple products, sports a slick, intuitive interface. Tap or slide your finger on the touchscreen to make calls or activate features; no tiny cellphone buttons here.

"Usability is key to the success of the iPhone," said Jonathan Cost, the Blacksburg-based editor of Thinkmac.net, a popular Apple-centric Web site. "There are many smartphones on the market that look great, but their downfall is their cumbersome interfaces."

Of course, the appeal of smartphones such as the iPhone is that they're more than phones. They're music players, Web browsers and e-mailers, among other things.

"It consolidates many of the devices that I carry around each day -- cellphone, iPod and Internet device," Cost said. "The integration between all three is phenomenal."

But while the iPhone supports e-mail and Web browsing, it doesn't support broadband cellular networks such as Verizon Wireless' EVDO. Ergo, using the Internet will be slow going.

Verizon said it will be rolling out its broadband network in Roanoke later this year, offering downloads up to 3.1 megabits per second. So while the bandwidth will be here, iPhone users won't be able to take advantage of it.

It's that kind of technical limitation that could cause businesses to shy away from the phone. Unlike music players such as the iPod, cellphones are as much business tools as personal devices -- witness the popularity of Research in Motion's BlackBerry handhelds.

"I don't foresee a large corporate adoption of the iPhone," Cost acknowledged, although he thinks smaller companies may be "more open to adopt it as the price comes down."

But Robert Turcotte, senior systems consultant for Entre Computer Center in Roanoke, doesn't think Apple is all that concerned about business users.

"Apple folks develop fashionable products and market them primarily to consumers," he said. "You'd expect on the corporate side you'd have weaknesses in the product."

Although the iPhone as originally announced could not work with most corporate e-mail systems, Apple has apparently fixed that. Rumors in the Apple community say the company has licensed the necessary Microsoft technology to do so.

Still, unlike devices from LG, Motorola, Nokia and others, the iPhone can't handle Microsoft Word documents or Excel spreadsheets, the mainstay of the business world.

For reasons like those, "businesses should keep away," Turcotte said. Not that he expects a major exodus to Apple. "I just don't see that business users are going to turn their backs on the BlackBerry -- it works with the central corporate e-mail system," he said.

Consumers, too, might find some of the iPhone's limitations annoying.

The iPhone only offers a watered-down version of the Web. For example, it doesn't allow Flash or Java applications to run on Web sites, and its JavaScript support is limited -- those are all technologies in wide use on the Web, allowing sites such as Gmail, YouTube and roanoke.com to offer a variety of user-friendly features.

And those who buy the iPhone because it is, as Cost put it, "the best iPod they've ever made" might be disappointed: Unlike music phones offered by Sprint and Verizon, it can't download music wirelessly -- not even from Apple's iTunes Store.

Yet all this information, most of which has been circulating since the iPhone's announcement in December, hasn't dampened the enthusiasm.

"If there is any company that can break into an already-existing market," Cost said, "it's Apple Inc."