Even Steve Jobs didn't know what he had on his hands when he announced the original iPhone as a combination of a mere "three revolutionary products"--an iPod, a cell phone, and a keyboard-less handheld computer. Once Apple introduced the App Store and opened it up to outside developers, however, the iPhone became capable of serving a rapidly growing number of functions--now more than 200,000 and counting.

But the iPhone has implications far beyond the phone or gadget market. In fact, it's opening the way to what Brian Chen calls the "always-on" future, where we are all constantly connected...