iPhone and GTD

Probably the most expected gadget ever, the iPhone was finally announced. Following a media pressure that was almost suffocating the presentation at the MacWorld Expo in San Francisco, the iPhone is now for real. It will ship in US in June, and it seems there is a need for arrangements with other phone operators in order to introduce it in Europe or Canada. For Europe, we can only hope to have it in the fall-winter 2007.

What’s really interesting about this piece of art is the fact that it’s more or less a computer, rather than a phone + PDA + mp3 player. It is powered by MAC OS X. Really. At this point we do not know much about the actual extent of the applications that we can host and moderately use on the iPhone but I still think iPhone can be one of the ultimate tools for GTD. My reasons:

1. It’s powered by a real operating system, so syncing with a computer will be – apparently – only a question for making 2 computers talk to one each-other. Making so easy to be connected…
2. It seems to be a very intuitive and easy to use tool. You write with your finger and you see all the time what you do on the multitouch surface.Visually, there is a great opportunity for development of applications or even widgets that will deploy on the iPhone.
3. It’s also a communication device by it’s first nature. You not only have a list of calls you have to do, but you do it in the same place, you actually call the person from the same device, not from your hipster PDA. Being MAC OS X powered, I can only imagine other automated functionalities: sending text messages as reminders instead of mail messages, triggering actions by the actual call of a person that was in your Waiting For list, like a call for a stockquote site to see how that stock is going on, or an automatically initiated conference… I think there is an enormous field for interaction here.
4. It already has a huge mass of fans coming from the Apple zone, so I guess they will continue to hype it.

Another interesting point for informations concerning the connection between iPhone and GTD might be this Open Thread at 43folders.com.

Later edit:

The only thing that could bring this down would be, in my opinion, an excessive control over the API’s by Apple. If they will come to a solution that will allow people to develop for iPhone in some kind of sandbox and then pass some certifications from Apple, I think we could have the ultimate tool for GTD.