I gave up my iPhone last week. It was loaned to me several months ago, and I got an extension off the initial time period, but the IT guys finally came around and collected it back. They did provide me with an iPod Touch in return, giving me 80 percent of what I used the iPhone for.

The interesting news: I don’t think I’m going to miss it much.

This comes after my initial raves over the device, and many of those raves still hold true. The iPhone opened my eyes to the possibilities of portable devices, but as time went on, I found myself turning more and more often to my trusty old BlackBerry.

Why is that? Simple: The iPhone is a terrible phone and a mediocre-at-best business e-mail device. Those are the primary things I do with a smart phone, and the iPhone was not capable of handling the things I most needed to do.

Now, the apps remain wonderful and of course, the iPhone is a very good media player. But in the end, it was easy to give it back — especially when I usually can run iPhone apps on the iPod Touch that’s been lent to me indefinitely. The iPhone is the closest thing yet to a true electronic Swiss Army Knife, but it basically needs a better corkscrew.