Having bought an iPhone as a consumer and being a developer I can see that the iPhone could have a great future and a potential significant impact on the landscape. I would not go as far as Read Write Web does in their article "Why Apple Will Dominate Next Gen Computing", but it is worth reading.
The powerful platform that Apple uses to create beautiful applications for MacOS and iPhone is now completely open. Over a decade in making, this Objective-C based stack is complete with interfaces for operating system, sockets, graphics, audio, motion control and UI components; just to name a few. The platform comes with complete iPhone simulator, XCode development environment and 1-click compile/build/deploy process. This platform is a game changer.
A premier venture capital firm, Kleiner Perkins, agrees. They sent John Doerr to announce the 100 million dollar iFund, a fund to focus on iPhone startups. Mr. Doerr is one of the most well respected venture capitalists ever. He called the release historical and even claimed that the iPhone is bigger than the PC. Think about this, he said: a device that travels with you everywhere and brings the world's information and applications to your finger tips. It is indeed a powerful thought.