What is the hype with the iphone?

I saw on Yahoo where people were griping because it was not "user friendly" for women with long nails, boo hoo. I just don't see the hype with it. You can buy similiar phones that do all the same stuff and way cheaper but since they don't have the "apple" label, people don't want them. I don't understand why we need phones that have internet, etc on them anyways.