The Obligatory iPhone Post

Yesterday, Steve Jobs announced the iPhone, a new combination phone, iPod and internet communications device. The iPhone version of Safari is, no surprise, based on a version of WebKit. WebKit is also used for the iPhone’s rich HTML mail capabilities. I’d like to congratulate everyone on the iPhone browser team, and also everyone who has contributed to WebKit, because your code is in there too.

One really important development here is that we may soon see the end of the “mobile web” as a separate concept. Think about the impressive browsing experience of the iPhone, as well as products like Nokia’s S60 Browser (based on WebKit) and the number of higher-end phones featuring Opera. Increasingly, you can browse the real web on a phone and have a high quality experience. There is less and less need for a special dumbed down version of the web just for mobile devices; instead we can have a single device-independent web that’s presented in the best possible way on a variety of devices.

The blogosphere outpouring on the iPhone and its WebKit-based browser is really exciting. Here is a small sampling of reactions.