Can another single word be added to the mountain already written in praise of the iPhone? You bet your sweet life it can. Being tied up on the big launch day, I arranged for someone to line up and get one of Steve Jobs’ latest sensation. The key instruction? Get it back here as fast as possible. I pretty well had to wrestle it from their hands. What is it about Apple that gives them such an intimate understanding of magical objects? Commercial mobile phones have been around for over 30 years and nothing has come close to the elegance and wonder of the iPhone. Sure there were hints of what to expect. The iPod has been getting slimmer with every model, but the iPhone is still a quantum leap. What I love the most is the way the entire object feels devoted to the screen. It’s not about numbers to punch or controls to play with, it’s about a perfectly beautiful screen. I think we’ll look back on the launch of the iPhone as the moment that tipped us into a pure screen culture.
