As you know I’m a gadget freak and love to own the latest and greatest technology and gadgets. I think one of the most asked questions of late has to be why I don’t yet have an iPhone? Well it seems every week I find a new reason why I’m still so much in love with my Nokia n95.

This week it has to be the latest news that there is an application in beta testing that allows you to view, watch, comment and even upload videos to youtube. I know there has been a mobile you tube web portal available for sometime, but this is actually a fully functional application. Two things why this would not be possible, at the moment, on the iPhone. Firstly you really do need a 3G network connection to stream all those videos. Oh and while I’m on the subject of streaming video content over 3G, you better check you have a flat rate data plan from your provider - streaming video content can burn up a lot of KBs. Of course people will say that you will get the ultimate experience when browsing over wireless, which is true, however given that free open wireless is difficult to come by in the UK your data connection may be your only suitable choice.

Secondly it’s the fact that such an application exists. There are a lot of clever people out there developing applications for the Nokia operating system and this can only mean one thing - a wide range of application choice for Nokia users. For iPhone users, at the moment, they are stuck with what the iPhone comes with (yes, yes I know you can hack the iPhone and put on other apps, but I’m talking out of the box - no hacking or cracking required) Of course Apple are about to release the software development kit so hopefully application such as this will start to appear on the iPhone.

Now this isn’t meant to put down the iPhone. Not at all, it’s just really to reaffirm to myself more than anyone why I have not yet jumped across to the Apple mothership. Now of course if the iPhone dropped with 3G at some point this year then I would have to reconsider my loyalty to the n95.

I”ve been playing a little bit this morning with the mobile youtube application and I must admit it’s very slick. I love how you can scroll through the videos, access your own account, as well as leave comments and upload your own videos. It really is just like doing this on a normal laptop. Very cool indeed ! At the end of the day, in my opinion, mobile devices of the future need to offer us the same browser experience we would get on our desktop or laptops. Armed with my n95, a copy of the Opera Mini Browser, the YouTube client and the SingPlayer client I’m getting kinda close.