This month the iPhone will be transformed. At present the iPhone is a refined phone, a first class iPod and a capable internet device. By this summer it might well have been reborn as the smallest, lightest, thinnest and cheapest Mac OSX computer. If the iPhone SDK lives up to expectations, it could propel the iPhone into a completely new orbit, escaping even the Newton’s powerful gravitational field.

Mac developers are an interesting bunch, inspired both by their elegant machines and by a genuine desire to add something truly unique to the OSX biosphere, they often create applications that teach Apple a thing or two about simplicity and usability. If one of your fears about switching to the Mac platform is lack of quality third party apps, then let me put you at ease, there are plenty!

As I write, there are thousands of these potential iPhone developers waiting for the starting gun to fire. Think for a moment about the toolbox that they’ll have at their disposal:

1. •Large (160dpi) screen
   

2. •Multi touch input with gestures
   

3. •Fast (620mhz) ARM CPU
   

4. •3D graphics co-processor (probably a PowerVR MBX core)
   

5. •Battery life of around 7 hours with intense usage
   

6. •2 mega pixel camera
   

7. •Mic & speaker
   

8. •Constant Internet connection (with no concerns over data charges)
   

9. •Accelerometer
   

10. •8GB of storage
    

11. •Large amount of RAM
    

12. •Robust application purchase, installation and management service. i.e. iTunes
    

13. •Most important of all: OSX based SDK, which will most likely include many of the goodies that Leopard does, i.e. some of the ‘Core’ services.
    

This is an impressive list, making the iPhone more capable in many ways than laptops of just 5 years ago.

Here are some applications that I expect to be ported to the iPhone within the year...

VLC

Firefox

Skype

Open Office or Neo Office

Delicious Library

Adium X

Xtorrent

NetNewsWire

Pounce

Sling Player

EyeTV

Orb client

The Gimp

VNC client and server

Acrobat Reader

Flash Player

Snapz Pro

Remote Buddy

Flickr Uploader

Transmit

MacMAME

I’d like to see Apple themselves offer iPhone versions of the iWork and iLife application suites. Certainly, Number, Pages and Keynote should be amongst the first to be ported over to the iPhone.

Of course there is one class of application that Apple already sell through iTunes, games. Undoubtedly, games with will be among the first and the most popular iPhone applications sold on iTunes. Here are a few games that I’d like to see ported to the iPhone, not because they are my most treasured games, but because I believe they would work well on the iPhone hardware.

Star Craft

The Sims

Civilisation III

Black and White

Escape from Monkey Island

F355 Challenge

Virtua Tennis

Burnout

In an ideal world, I’d like to see, Blizzard, EA and SEGA bring some of their best games to the iPhone. It goes without saying that I’d love to see some of the first party game from Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft ported, but sadly that just isn’t going to happen.

To sum up, I like to restate my belief that 2008/2009 timeframe is going to be hugely important for the mobile industry. Just as we’ve witnessed the rapid exodus from desktop to laptop computing over a period of 5 years, the laptop to palmtop transition could well happen with similar haste, starting this year.

The maturing of Symbian OS, the introduction of Google’s Android platform and the availability of the iPhone SDK will all play their part in 2008.

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