Future of Work consortium

As just about every sentient being in the universe knows, tomorrow, June 29 is the Big Day when Apple's iPhone will go on sale (by the time most of you read this post, it will already be out of stock). There are already lots of folks lined up outside just about every Apple store in the country so they can be among the first to get their hands on this latest of Steve Job's creations.

It's almost as dramatic as a new Harry Potter book.

I'm only the most recent "independent" news source to give Apple some free publicity, but like everyone else I'm really curious about how well the iPhone will work and whether this combination cell phone, PDA, iPod, email portal, and web browser will "change the world" the way some people think it will.

From what I've seen and heard so far, it truly is a remarkable invention. My question is, what impact will it have on the future of work? Will the iPhone actually drive innovation in business processes, products, and our working relationships, or is it just a highly creative simplification and consolidation of a bunch of things we all carry around already? Will the iPhone platform be open enough, and robust enough, to support third-party and special-purpose applications? Will it change the way we work?

I'm curious, and I'd love to hear from you with ideas or examples of how it's changed things. I suspect that, like many other new technologies, not even its inventors can completely predict or anticipate the many ways it will be put to creative - and productive - use.