I love the iPhone. Everyone I know who has one loves theirs, too. I differ from most people I know, though, in that I rarely use it as a phone: for me, it’s an app platform exclusively, not a phone at all (you can see me waxing uber-lyrical about the iPhone and apps elsewhere in this blog).

So I have another device that I use for phone calls and text messaging – a Nokia N95 8GB. It’s what I call a mobile phone rather than a mobile device as I tend to refer to the iPhone (when I’m not calling it “the iPhone”).

Anyway, I’ve had the N95 8GB for nearly three years and have resisted any upgrade option offered by Vodafone, my mobile carrier. Why? Simply because I’ve not been impressed enough with any other phone to upgrade yet.

One of the big things for me with the N95 8GB is its outstanding capability as a camera and video-recording device. It’s just brilliant (it beats the iPhone 3G hands down in this area, with that device’s crappy 2-megapixel camera, no auto-focus and no flash).

For me, a successor device must be at least as good as the N95 8GB in this department.

And Iâ’e found that successor, as an email I received yesterday from Vodafone showed me with details of the HTC Desire – a device I’d already marked out as the potential successor to the N95 8GB.

One conversation later with the helpful folk at Vodafone’s 191 service, and I’m on a new plan and expecting delivery of my HTC Desire next Wednesday (it would be earlier if it weren’t for the Easter holiday).

And that already exceeds my expectations, having phoned Vodafone expecting to only pre-order the new device for delivery in a week or so when it’s officially available. They told me they just received an initial delivery of 600 Desires from HTC, so the first 600 customers to order one, gets it immediately.

And what about my iPhone? What’s next for that? Well, my answer would usually have been what I’ve been saying to anyone asking that question: nothing. There’s nothing out there that, in my view, would make me move from the iPhone. Not even the HTC Desire.

Of course, that was before the iPad which launches in the US tomorrow April 3 and here in the UK later in April. That looks me to as the natural successor to my iPhone, given how I see it (an app device, not a phone).

But thatâ’ a different story, one yet to be told. Meanwhile, you can read a terrific story now about the iPad by Stephen Fry in the current issue of Time magazine (as I described it, Stephen Fry’s excellent adventure).

As for the HTC Desire, I’ll let you know how I get on and how my expectations go. I see it as a phone, of course, and a digital camera and video recorder. But it will likely offer me an appeal for apps given the development of the Android platform as an app platform. So I have an open mind as to what this device will end up being for me and how it will complement the iPhone (and its successor).

If you’re considering an HTC Desire, or have one, I’d love to know what you think of it.

Related posts:

• The enterprise iPad is coming
• More evidence on why you need to make your website work for mobile devices
• It’s all about the apps