How do you access music, photos, and video using the touch screen?

Apple explains that you can:

Scroll through your songs, artists, albums, and playlists with just a flick of a finger. Album artwork is dramatically presented on the large display. And now use Cover Flow to browse your music library by album artwork for the first time on an iPod.

Effectively, the iPhone provides the option of having content either displayed by a list or by album art.

How does the iPhone synchronize music, photos, and videos with a computer? Can it sync via Bluetooth or wi-fi?

The iPhone synchronizes music, photos, and videos in the same way that the iPod does -- via the iTunes software program and the iPod "dock connector" port.

Currently, you cannot officially synchronize the iPhone via Bluetooth or wi-fi. However, a company called Jeff-Net has created a FileSync program that works by FTP to synchronize documents with an iPhone for a mere US$4.99.

Starting with iPhone OS 3.0, and continuing with later versions of the iOS as well, it became possible for "any application, not just games, to communicate between devices using Bluetooth" and as a result, support for synchronizing additional data over Bluetooth is provided by some third-party applications as well.

Can you access the iTunes Music Store directly from the iPhone?

Not as originally shipped on June 29, 2007. However, on September 5, 2007, Apple unveiled the iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store which made it possible to "browse, search, preview, purchase and download songs and albums from the iTunes Music Store over a Wi-Fi network directly" onto an iPhone or iPod touch.

Can you "beam" music, photos, and videos between iPhones? Can you "beam" data files between iPhones? Does the iPhone support "disk mode" when connected to a computer?

As designed with the first and second versions of the iPhone operating system, the iPhone software did not allow one to transfer music, photos, or videos between iPhones. The iPhone could not be used to transfer data files via Bluetooth or wi-fi, nor did it support "disk mode" when connected to a Mac or PC.

However, as is often the case, where Apple decided to deny access, third-parties came to the rescue.

It's not quite as convenient as it would be to directly "beam" music, photos, videos, or data files between iPhones, but as first spotted by the TUAW blog, there is a third-party iPhone application called Song Sender that makes it easy to send a song by e-mail to another iPhone -- or any other device with e-mail access -- or add the song to the available ringtones on your iPhone.

To solve the lack of iPhone "disk mode" functionality, PhoneView (originally named iPhoneDrive) makes it possible to copy files from a Mac to the iPhone for transfer to another computer as well as access some types of files on the iPhone itself. For Windows users, TouchCopy provides many of the same functions.

Also see: How can I transfer or copy music, photos and videos from my iPhone to my computer?