Finally Apple have announced the much rumoured iPhone. What a cool device. They have redefined cell phones, and in my opinion hand-held devices in general. I don't remember any new gadget announcement bringing me to say the word "fuck" as many times as the introduction of the iPhone did.

A while back I wrote about multi-functional devices and polymorphic UIs. I had some pretty lofty ideas and hopes for an iPod / iPhone multi-functional gadget and I have to say I was blown away with the iPhone.

I think Apple has nailed it.

For me one of the neatest things about the device is that it runs OS X - or maybe some kind of cut down version. Presumably I will be able to ssh into my iPhone and do some ruby scripting. I'm sure someone will write an app that can be used to control other devices in the home - salling clicker style.

Most popular story on digg by far.

The news of the iPhone has turned out to be wildly popular. AAPL shares rose by some 8% and iPhone was pretty much the only news in Steve's keynote.

On digg.com this story is the most popular story in the last 365 days and it's barely 13 hours old.

The stock market was also impressed

Take a look at the graph of AAPL against PALM and RIMM (makers of blackberry) as at close of trading on the 9th January 2007 (thanks to daringfireball for that link)

picture taken from finance.yahoo.com

With the upcoming Apple media event on Tuesday 12th September it is widely expected that Apple will introduce an iTunes Movie store, some iPod updates of some kind and the new iMacs (already released at the time of writing). Some pundits are tipping an iPhone.

I'm hoping for an iPod / iPhone multi-functional device.

All the handheld electronic devices I can think of that are wildly successful concentrate on one task and do that task very well. Devices that try to do too many tasks (read: more than one) often do a mediocre job of each task and thus don't turn out to be successful - relatively speaking.

This could be about to change.

For a multi-functional device to be successful, among other things, it would need to do an excellent job of each task it performs and have a UI that accommodates each of its tasks equally well without compromising the usability of any other task.

Unless the two tasks are very closely related in terms of UI requirements, this implies a kind of UI that can morph to fit the requirements of each task.

As UI components such as touch sensitive input devices and small display devices improve, "polymorphic UIs" are much more doable.

Apple Insider thinks that an Apple cell phone is real and ready for production:

"We believe this smart phone has been in development for over 12 months and has overcome substantial challenges including design, interference, battery life and other technical glitches."

The smart phone they speak of is not a multi-functional iPod / iPhone device, just a phone, albeit having an iPod-like form factor:

"The design will be an iPod nano-like candy bar form factor..."

When I think about what I would like Apple to produce in terms of an iPhone, I always think of an iPod nano with which I can make and receive phone calls. ie a multi-functional device. I carry an iPod around so I can listen to music and I carry a phone so I can make phone calls. If some of the UI functions overlap and the difference can be accommodated by a morphing UI, then why not package the two together?

This MacNN article talks about how Apple has filed a "Multi-functional hand-held device patent application"

The article reveals a

"multi-functional hand-held device capable of configuring user inputs based on how the device is to be used."

If the article is reliable, Apple is clearly thinking about multi-functional devices.

And many analysts certainly think Apple is working on a cell phone.

If two groups of analysts got together, one group behind the multi-functional device idea and the other behind the iPhone idea, would they end the meeting with the idea of an iPod / iPhone multi-functional device?

Let's hope it is an iPod / iPhone multi-functional device.

Of course if on Tuesday Apple brings out a multi-functional device that is both an iPod music player and an iPod video player, I'll be both disappointed and looking silly.