It finally gelled in my head what bugged me about the iPhone's lack of simultaneous processing. It's not truly a digital convergence device. It's a sequential task device.
A digital convergence device is a device that does lots of things: MP3/FM music player, alarm clock, cell phone, web browser, calendar, address book, GPS-enabled map, pedometer, etc. The purpose of such a device is to do all of these things, not each of these things. If I can't do them all simultaneously, it isn't a convergence device, it's a sequential device. The iPhone is exactly that: a sequential task device.
If I've decided...