The hype over the iPhone is reaching the boiling point as the release of the new gadget is now just a week away. Speculation over still unknown features, frustration over the price, and the lure of the touch screen interface that no one really knows much about is fueling the furor.
The most important feature of the new phone is not likely to be the touch interface, but the Web browser. Based on Apple's Safari Web browser, the iPhone will have arguably have the best mobile Web browser available. Many other portable devices have a Web browser, but most of them are wretched. The Treo, a popular phone/PDA choice for business people, has a dreadful Web browser. How bad is it? It is so bad that I just never bother to use it, period. It renders pages badly, is nearly impossible to navigate, and crashes constantly. When the Web browser crashes, it usually completely locks the phone up, too.
So a phone with a really good, usable Web browser has a lot going for it. As more and more stuff is available via the Web, the browser is going to be one of the three or four most important applications on a mobile phone, with the others, in order of importance, the phone function, the address book, and the calendar.
In an interesting twist, Apple has stated that developers who want to write new applications for the iPhone should do so using the built in development environment that comes with the Web browser. Some developers are groaning, as this approach puts some limits on what can be done, but many things can be done well using this approach.
I suspect the iPhone, like the iPod, is going to force a sea change in the mobile phone business, and two years from now, mobile phones will all look a lot more like the iPhone.