Is It A Phone, Is It A Mac, Is It A Platform? No, It's Super-Steve!

The greatest surprise for me when the iPhone came out was that two uber-geek associates who previously were wedded to Linux-powered, razor thin PCs with machine code interfaces - both bought one.  But why I thought?  Codemasters are hardly known for their love of gabbing on the phone.  "It's not a phone," I was informed, "especially, if you jailbreak it.  Then you can install lots of extra software or write your own."  That little exchange made me realise that Steve Jobs - aka Mr Lighter, Brighter & Whiter - had created a whole new product category by calling a computer a phone and thereby making it seem less dorky, whilst simultaneously sucking in new tech-head admirers by giving them something they'd always wanted - mobile code.  Then last week, the other boot dropped when Apple announced its Software Developer Kit (SDK) and the iPhone App store.  In short - no more jail breaks required.  Now, the phone which is actually a computer which is actually a new computing platform is actually a marketplace.  Stick that in your media convergence pipe and smoke it!  What does all this mean for the modern marketeer already trying to digest a widget-driven world?  Well everything and nothing.  Everything because Apple has finally cracked the mobile web and used it to sneak a little bazaar into the pockets of the global digerati.  Application developers all around the world will have a cool new shopfront for their wares - as long as they are kicking 30 per cent upstairs to Mr W,L&B.  And nothing, because by calling it a phone - no one even noticed.