Macworld Expo 2007 is rocking. The keynote, the exhibits, the whole package is red hot, and I’m running around with a spatula scraping attendees’ chins off the carpet. But before I give this communal high the woo-hoo it deserves, I want to get some of my negative opinions out of the way so that my main analysis can stick to the facts and hew, appropriately, to the positive. I’ll visit the briefest of rains on Apple’s parade.Absolutely everybody will remember 2007 for the introduction of iPhone, which is the ultimately converged mobile device. It enters with unlimited potential, but some notable caveats.In an off-hand remark, Steve Jobs referred to iPhone as “like a Blackberry without Microsoft Exchange.” Let me be the first to haunt him with those words. Blackberry Enterprise Server (BES) supports Notes and Exchange, and it has robust support for customer-developed and third-party client/server applications. Wireless operators provide free, unlimited e-mail service for Blackberry users without a BES back-end. While iPhone will have “push IMAP” e-mail from Yahoo!, everything on Blackberry, including Web and client/server application traffic, is pushed to the handheld. Data is encrypted and guaranteed delivery, and connections (except manual Web browsing) survive through blackouts and sags in wireless connectivity. You can read Blackberry e-mail and browse attachments and Web pages while you’re off-line. iPhone won’t be a Blackberry killer, much as I’d like to see one. Apple set up the first vendor partnership that leaves Apple dependent on a third party. And not just any third party: Apple knighted Cingular/AT&T as its exclusive US wireless carrier for iPhone in what the AT&T spokesman called a “multi-year deal.” iPhone users won’t have the chance to choose or switch wireless operators. That’s a freedom that Apple should have supported. In Apple’s defense, I know from working closely with Nokia that US wireless operators bend handset manufacturers over, deciding which of their products are permitted on their networks and when. T-Mobile is an exception; you can buy an unlocked GSM/GPRS/EDGE phone anywhere and get a T-Mobile SIM card for it on Amazon with no term commitment. That’s why I prefer T-Mobile as a carrier, but any flavor of carrier lock-in gives me heartburn. Younger users of iPhone will also want prepaid plans. If AT&T doesn’t offer them for iPhones, subscribers are out of luck.As for Apple TV, I have little negative to say about it. $299 is an extraordinary price, clearly subsidized by iTunes. It kicks the legs out from under Mac mini as an elite home theater component and makes Windows Media Center machines look way overpriced (which they always were). But there is the matter of publicly-available software development kits (SDKs). If developers are shut out of iPod, Apple and iPhone, it won’t hurt Apple’s sales, but it will hurt Apple’s reputation and future. The genuine killer iPhone, Apple TV and iPod applications live in the imaginations of people who aren’t on Apple’s payroll. Stifling imagination is anathema to the Apple Computer way. I hope that remains true for the entity that now calls itself Apple Incorporated. Squeezing out “Computer” ought not mean squeezing out developers for Apple’s high-volume platforms. Software Development