The Apple of Phones

When the original beige Macs were still available at retail, one configuration included a phone handset attached to one side of the case. At the time I thought that was perhaps the most amazing idea for a computer. How can you possibly be more innovative than to add a phone to a computer. How convenient!

It's not surprising that Apple was the company that offered the optional computer-Mac-phone. Of course, this was back in the paleolithic age of the personal computer, so it was a little difficult to think of it as anything more than a gimmick.

Fast forward to the 2007 announcement of the Apple iPhone. Now, instead of a phone attached to a computer, we have a computer installed inside a phone. For years we have been told that the age of mobile computers is just around the corner, but for all the sound and fury and the endless torrential flood of hype, the best we've been able to do is "oh, you mean I can get web pages on my phone now?" Well, sure, provided you don't get an "out of memory" message or something equally inspiring.

But like so many other products, the iPhone quite literally changes everything. This isn't just another round of hype. This is the real deal, and there is every reason to believe Apple isn't even close to being finished yet.

Here we have a device that runs a full-strength operating system built on over four decades of engineering knowledge. That alone is enough of a foundation upon which Apple can change the course of even the mightiest rivers of high-technology. OS X is a fantastically capable operating system, and by installing it in a phone, Apple has already contributed immensely to the mobile device market.

To that they have added a real, fully-functional web browser and integrated its function with the iPhone's multi-touch display technology. A real fully-functional web browser has been the goal of every "web-phone" ever manufactured, and all of them could be easily categorized as underwhelming. Apple, on the other hand, just dropped Safari into the iPhone and said "make it work with multi-touch." Eureka!

It is really quite difficult to overstate just how important all of this is. A truly mobile Internet that actually works like the real Internet has ramifications that reach far beyond something as simple as a phone, which is one of the reasons I believe Steve Jobs introduced his new product by describing it as a three-in-one device. Even really smart people haven't grasped the full implications of all this yet. Gaming, advertising, commerce, politics, charity, culture: it's all going to be affected and for the better.

In this series we are going to examine what has been done so far and where this technology is going. Understanding how it works and more importantly, why it works is the first step to understanding major innovations like Apple's iPhone, and putting those innovations to work to better ourselves and our society.