Stephen Ellis | July 15, 2008
YES, this is yet another media item about the iPhone, but rather than hyping (or slamming) the device itself, excoriating Apple and/or its telecoms partners over pricing and launch glitches, or capturing user reaction, it's about the iPhone as part of a bigger picture.
As quite a few reviews of the 3G iPhone and Apple's simultaneous release of version two of its phone software make clear, it's the latter - the software, not the device - that is by far the most important shift here.
That's because the software (which can also be loaded onto 6 million older pre-3G iPhones Apple has sold) finally starts to take fuller advantage of what the iPhone really is - a handheld computer with far more in common with Macs or PCs than with less capable mobile phones.
The new software starts to take advantage of that, and of the stripped-down version of Mac OS X that runs on iPhones, in two obvious ways: via Apple's App Store, which opens the devices to a (carefully controlled, for now) range of third-party applications; and via Apple's makeover of its antiquated .Mac web services, now known as MobileMe.
Crudely, the App Store is a first approximation of the rich ecosystem of software applications and utilities from thousands of vendors that surrounds and sustains all the major computer operating systems.
For now, the emerging iPhone ecosystem is circumscribed because of Apple's cautious insistence that only one app operates at any time (a way to prevent the underpowered processors used in phones from being overwhelmed by multiple demands, maximising the chances that OSX and the phone itself remain stable), and by Apple's constraints on how and where third-party apps can plug in.
Apple's insistence that all apps be sold through iTunes (with Apple taking a 30 per cent chunk of any revenue) is another restriction.
Overall, though, it is fair to say that the App Store's early offerings - and its immense popularity almost straight away with iPhone users - is a solid first step in the direction of openness, and towards the likely huge growth of a rich variety of ways that users can customise mobile devices.
The immense array of social networking apps available for the iPhone from the outset - and what seems a natural fit between these kinds of web-based activities and mobile rather than tethered devices - has already fired a resounding shot across the bow of existing social sites.
If the iPhone is anywhere near as successful as pundits are predicting, Apple may end up being as potent a gatekeeper for social networking as it is for digital music - and Facebook, MySpace and their peers could end up almost as powerless as the record companies. Watch this space.
If the App Store is building an ecosystem and allowing users to customise, the new MobileMe services - including remote backup and synchronisation of contacts, pictures, calendars and so on across multiple user devices, including Macs, iPhones and PCs - is Apple's first move into cloud computing.
Much like Microsoft's investment in its Mesh technology, Apple realises it is strategically placed to help consumers and smaller businesses start using the cloud.
Both firms are trying to take advantage of the crucial role of data synchronisation and their installed software presence on so many devices (Microsoft via Windows, Apple via iTunes) to outflank the totally web-centric advertising-centric approach to providing mass access to the cloud, on which Google is betting the farm.
It's early days, but Apple and Microsoft may turn out to be in a better position than Google - with Apple best-placed of all since it doesn't face anything like the same dilemma as the boys at Redmond over delivering cloud services that cannibalise existing software sales.
The biggest canvas in all this is the one Steve Jobs and his team have been painting on.
When the iPod was first launched (and widely ridiculed as a probable failure) in 2002, it appeared to reflect two closely related strands of thought in Apple's leadership.
The first was that as everything - all content and data - became digital, hardware continued to get smaller and more powerful, and networked mobility became ubiquitous, traditional general-purpose desktop computers would become less important, and a range of more limited task-specific computers (or appliances) would emerge.
The rise of consumer laptops and media centre computers were important, but the iPod is an even better example, and now the iPhone (and other smartphones) are rapidly pushing further along this path.
Microsoft takes the same view, leaving consumer electronics companies right alongside traditional cellphone makers in the line of fire.
Apple's second internal premise seems to have been that for everyday users to accept and adopt these appliances (that were really simplified computers) en masse, they would have to be superbly easy to learn and use - qualities Apple had a history of delivering in products.
So far the big-picture trends have played out perfectly for Apple, which is why its market value has risen from $US6 billion ($6.2 billion) in 2002 to $US152 billion today.
In the same six year period, Microsoft's market value has fallen from $US347 billion (or 58 times Apple) to $235 billion (1.5 times Apple).
None of this means the new version of the iPhone will be an unmitigated triumph, or the trends of the past five years will remain the dominant drivers in consumer IT, or that Apple will keep winning.
But it is worth keeping this broader context in mind as iPhone mania ebbs and flows.