Thanks to the inescapable media coverage of Apple's iPhone, most people will have at least heard quite a lot about how it works in practice. And let's face it, what Apple have succeeded in doing is laudable - they have single-handedly popularised the touch-screen user interface. You may say that there were good examples of touch-screens previously, and I don't disagree. However when I use the word popularise, I mean that thing that Apple does so well that causes products to just fly off the shelves like the iPod does continually.
If you have ever used an iPhone or an iPod Touch you will know that after some initial frustration, it becomes fairly natural to operate most functions with your finger. Apple even goes as far as showing little visual cues to help with typing on screen. But there is one aspect of operation where touchscreens are soundly beaten by ordinary buttons - feedback. What I mean by this is when you press a button you generally get a good impression that it has had some sort of effect due to the fact that you can feel it moving. This is something you don't have with a finger on a touchscreen, not yet. We get touchscreens in Star Trek after all...
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In Star Trek, as you rightly mention they have touch screens, however there is usually a visual cue (my best memory is that a kind of 2cm wide, almost transparent ripple from around the finger press that indicates the press), along with an audible cue as well (a beep or boing). It comes as no surprise that the iPhone has no such cues/feedback at all to indicate that you have pressed a specific item.
I just wish someone would bring back a really, really good phone... with nothing on it but the best signal, good coverage and a phone-book on-sim that stores at least 1000 phone numbers and names (and nothing else!). Lets get rid of all the extra rubbish - the extra ring tones, camera, "multi-media" and other nonsense. With simple, honest functionality with a very, very basic "os" running the phone, and hopefully more room for a bigger battery, it might last for more than 3 days without having to be recharged! Oh wait - My very first mobile phone that I purchased back in 1999, a Motorola "brick" did exactly that - now there was a wonderful phone indeed - 3-4 weeks between charges even if you used it, semi-indestructible (I dropped it numerous times on to concrete whilst cycling at high speeds), 200 phone book items on the SIM, no useless games and best of all, a really loud speaker so that you could hear the caller clearly and always hear the phone ring from over 10 metres away - regardless of the weather or noise around you.