The birth of the Mac in 1984 created a long and prosperous revolution in technology for computer users. Apple has opened the iPhone to software developers. This revolution will be bigger than the Mac. Today we enter the age of a Mac in your pocket.

Our favorite Cupertino computer makers string of successes continues. Normally, we prefer to focus our attention on Mac issues. Apple’s decision to open the iPhone to software developers is an important milestone.

It means a Mac in your pocket. It means the capability for truly productive applications in a handheld device. It means corporate users will embrace the new handheld Mac. It means Mac games in your pocket.

Just in case you missed the news, yesterday Apple announced that they are providing software developers with an iPhone SDK. The software development kit which will allow them to create applications, utilities, and games for the iPhone.

CEO Steve Jobs also announced an Enterprise Program for the iPhone and announced that the iPhone would work with Microsoft’s Exchange in a highly integrated fashion. The SDK was far more than most pundits expected, providing developers with the same tools as Apple uses for iPhone development.

The announcement is truly a watershed event on the order of the first Mac in 1984, perhaps more so than the ubiquity of Windows. It is not difficult to imagine that the iPhone may quickly become a bigger business than the Mac itself.

Why? A clever combination of Mac OS X and Apple’s ability to cobble together existing technology to make it work in uniquely gratifying ways for the user.

The iPhone has OS X inside, as does the Mac and iPod touch. The iPhone is the new Mac, bringing everything cell phone and mobile device users want-- ease of use, simplicity of design, high functionality-- to a device that fits easily into a pocket.

The Mac, via the Cocoa layer which sits atop OS X’s kernel, core layers, core services, utilizes the screen and keyboard and mouse. That won’t work as the interface layer for a handheld device, so Apple created Cocoa touch, which handles the user interface for the iPhone.

Otherwise, it’s a Mac inside. Almost. What’s missing in the iPhone is the growing population of robust applications and utilities. Those are coming. Fast. Apple’s announcement means that one year from now being an iPhone user will be even more rewarding.

Did I mention games? Some of the games demonstrated on the iPhone during Thursday’s announcement are stunning. The iPhone brings together, not only a cell phone and a media player, but a handheld gaming device similar to the Wii controller mixed with the Play Station controller. Games can use the iPhone’s built in accelerometer to make the device a controller in your pocket.

How important is software development for the iPhone? The country’s most successful venture capital group set up the iFund, a $100-million bankroll to fund iPhone software developers. One year from now there will be hundreds, if not a few thousand, applications and utilities to download for your iPhone.

Did I mention the iPhone Store? Taking iTunes Store to a new level, iPhone users will be able to buy and install iPhone software from Apple. Software developers will get their applications and utilities certified by Apple, and Apple will put them online for iPhone users to buy and download and install.

This whole end-to-end, cradle-to-grave system has some worried about monopoly abuse and a ‘closed system’ but it won’t matter. The whole iPhone platform will be a huge business for Apple, dwarfing the Mac, dwarfing the iPod.

The age of a Mac in your pocket has dawned. It’s the age of the iPhone. 

Well, since nobody else seems interested, I’ll give it a go. When the iPhone came out, I thought it was cool and everything, and I hoped it would be a success. I read all the whining and moaning about “no third-party apps” and went, “It’s a just a phone, OK, settle down!” I surely didn’t see the motivation to “jailbreak” your phone to install some incompetent hackery, utilizing a security loophole in Safari to install it at all, and risk having your phone bricked by the next update. The whole idea is how well integrated the whole thing is, and how it “just works.”

Well, now Apple has given the whiners all they asked for and more. (Not that that stopped the whining, but it seems like it’s getting more shrill and desperate: “$99 a year? Oh, the humanity!") And suddenly, I get it! That Epocrates demo really woke me up. I’m not a doctor, but all of a sudden a light went on over my head; I swear, just like in the cartoons! Imagine this and three or four other apps aimed at the medical profession. You know they’ll be coming. Windows “won the desktop war” because everybody “had to” buy a PC because they “had to” run MS Office or some other unpleasant instrument of torture. How long will it be after June, with Epocrates and several more apps like it out there, that in order to be a doctor, you “have to” buy an iPhone because you “have to” have these apps in your shirt pocket at all times?

This is just the thin end of the wedge, though. Pretty much any occupation that requires you to be able to read and write could benefit from several apps like this, and pretty soon, they’ll “have to” buy iPhones, too. And if they “have to” buy iPhones, how long will corporate IT departments be able to stonewall about supporting them? I’ve just seen a vision of the future, and I’m blown away! I also suddenly realize how far ahead Apple is with the iPhone, even as it is. Everybody keeps saying, well the xPhone has a faster processor, and the yPhone has 3G, and the zPhone has a better camera, etc. etc. That’s all completely irrelevant! Apple is so far ahead on the OS and interface design, that nobody will ever catch up, and soon it will have so many “must have” apps out there that nobody can catch up with that either. I mean, Microsoft has had 20 years to equal the Mac’s OS after they were handed the keys to the safe, and they haven’t come close. Is RIM going to suddenly equal OS X, starting from scratch? Don’t make me laugh. I think we just saw the world change again. And it’s Apple that did it. Again!

What a great post, Gatesbasher. The ‘keynote’ was not as exciting as the technology delivered and the unbelievable potential. Perhaps that’s why there isn’t more screaming from the rooftops.

Ron and Gates have it right. This is a watershed event, probably larger than 1984. Portable communication blended with a real computer. Apple’s genius is the embedded OS. That is going to be a real barrier to entry for the competition. By the time serious efforts bear fruit, the iPhone will be too far ahead in market share, polish, and technology.

It’s too bad that the cellular companies have their fingers in this thing, as their model for pricing and customer service stinks. But as Wi-Fi continues to spread, one can see a future where unlimited use of this great tool is nearly free.

I can’t wait to see what Apple (and developers) do with this technology in the future!

Thanks for the kind words, Bugs. Reading your post gave me another revelation, though. Steve said at the keynote that they “wouldn’t limit” the use of Skype, for example, over Wi-Fi, only over the cellular network. As Wi-Fi spreads wider and wider to be nearly universal, won’t the cellular networks become increasingly irrelevant?  And since the Wi-Fi chips are so much smaller and less power-hungry than even EDGE, why won’t the famous (and probably over-hyped) 3G become irrelevant as well? It just keeps getting bigger and bigger!

I was going to express my surprise that this event didn’t warrant a slot in iTunes for later viewing, let alone a live stream to my ATV. If I were Jobs, this is EXACTLY the kind of thing I’d pump through the wires for ATV owners. It’s just not as amazing to watch these events after the fact. The power of the RDF is inversely proportional to the time passed.

Well I went into iTunes tonite and there it was. A little late, but now I get to watch it again, larger, with popcorn.

Apple… you’re missing a no-brainer opportunity here! Keynotes are like turkish delight for us Mac faithful! There should be a special “Apple” menu on the ATV for all-things-Apple.

I apologize for the logorrhea, but I keep thinking of stuff. What I’m beginning to get a small glimpse of is the foresight that went into this whole thing. Apple didn’t have to include Wi-Fi on the iPhone; nobody would have batted an eye if they hadn’t. But they did, and then they blindsided everybody with the iPod Touch, and then the Wi-Fi music store, and now the App Store. (Anybody want to bet that the reason the initial version of the SDK doesn’t give access to the dock connector or Bluetooth is that they don’t want people using a mike or Bluetooth headset with the Touch and giving the game away too early?)

The iPhone also didn’t need an accurate 3-axis accelerometer to tell whether it should be in portrait or landscape mode, either, but it has one. So now it can work like a Wii controller, but that’s just a drop in the bucket. How about you strap it to your wrist and Divot Doctor™ critiques your golf swing? Or you put it in a holder on your dashboard and the Bob Bondurant Performance Driving School tells you how you took that corner, and how to do it better? The possibilities are endless!

And “iPhone University” just because they’ve got Wi-Fi on campus? Please! You could run a university online, with televised lectures, interactive testing, you name it, without a single moss-covered building. I know there are online courses now, but people could learn anything they want, on their lunch break, on the bus, etc. Of course, they can do the same thing with Windows Mobile...right!

OK, I’d be lying if I said that I found all of these ideas of Gatesbasher’s realistic on first read, but then I thought, “Why not?” After all, as soon as Apple put accelerometers into notebooks that had Tiger, someone made a widget that acts as a spirit level. Yeah, it was a $2,500 spirit level, but it worked.

The only thing that now sounds out there is that the iPhone 3.0 will be nicknamed, because of its powerful functionality improvements and the version number, the Tricorder.