Steve Jobs ’ iPhone demo at Macworld Expo in January shake the sign , bar the presses and discomfit the voguish - earpiece status quo . Yes , Jobs changed the worldly concern . Again .

Hiskeynotewas so crazily great that five weeks afterward , we almost forget one important fact : TheiPhonedoesn’t exist — at least as a shipping mathematical product .

Neither you nor I has ever so much as rival an iPhone . Almost everything we know about the iPhone came from one big sales sales pitch . The iPhone could be the greatest twist every manufactured . Or it could be a horrible flop like theNewton . Either is potential .

Jobs ’ iPhone demonstration was so hefty that he actually made hoi polloi conceive that Apple invented a whole Modern drug user interface . In fact , Apple did something more important than that . The troupe take some of the unspoilt — hitherto obscure — UI enquiry and put it into a intersection that you will be capable to purchase . It did the same matter with the original Apple computer , the Mac , and with the iPod .

This is how Apple changes the world . It take awesome enquiry out of other the great unwashed ’s labs , burnish and perfects it , and then embark it as warm - and - fuzzy consumer products everyone can buy .

Succeed or fail , the iPhone will be commemorate as the first major measure toward the third - generation microcomputer drug user port .

Old and bust

The first - multiplication UI was the command line . Apple did n’t invent it , but used the construct for former Apple computers .

The second - genesis UI is the ikon - base , folder - driven , resizable overlap windows interface that we use today . Again , Apple did n’t invent it — Xerox did . But Apple was the first major company to build it into a consumer intersection , the original Macintosh computer , which came out in 1984 .

Microsoft ship its Windows Vista operating arrangement last calendar month , and Apple ’s next update to OS X is expected by recent spring . Although these platforms take elements of the next - generation UI , they ’re free-base on the same old folders , icon and windows paradigm from the 1980s .

I do n’t know about you , but I think 23 age is a tenacious time to expect . I ’m fed up and quick for the next ultra leap forward in UI technology . You will , too , once you ’ve seen the video I connect to at the end of this pillar .

The new hotness

Tomorrow ’s third - coevals PC UI has already been forge . All the research is done . In fact , some elements have been independently developed by dozens of geniuses at multiple enquiry centers , each taking a slightly different coming , but all cover more than one of the major five elements of tomorrow ’s UI . Here are those element :

1 . Multi - touch : A lot of people now guess Apple fabricate multi - touch — the theme that a touch - concealment can respond to two or more point of control at once . In fact , researcher have been developing multi - touch technologies for more than a decade .

Multi - touch on a PC drug user interface is as powerful as “ multi - touch ” in real sprightliness . opine if you had to go through life interact with the world using just one fingertip . Dialing the phone would be OK , but foot up the receiver would be a job . Multi - touch let you ” pick up ” on - screen objective , become them around , resize them and do other utile thing .

2 . gesture : Current generation touch - screen devices already have fundamental gestures . In fact , even the Apple Newton , one of the first personal digital assistants , supported gestures . If you encircle text while writing on the Newton , the circulate give-and-take would then be “ pick out . ” That ’s a motion . Interestingly , multi - touch amplifies the power of gestures by an order of magnitude . For example , you could put two finger’s breadth on the left and correct side of a photograph , then use the motion of incite your fingers apart to forthwith blow up the picture .

3 . Physics : Second - genesis UIs have folders , trash cans and documents that typify physical objects . But they do n’t play like physical objects . They do n’t move like they have weight , mass and momentum . When you slue a booklet across your Windows desktop , it does n’t slack down gradually , but stops the blink of an eye you release the computer mouse release . When you doss an icon against other desktop object , they do n’t scatter like bowling pins . If they did , your mind would more promptly assume them as real objects .

4 . 3 - viosterol : Some UI object in both Vista and OS X have 3 - D properties . For instance , you might be able to sour a document around and see what ’ ’s on the back , or bet at cascaded documents from the side , which assist you select and organize them . For the most part , however , current multiplication UIs are deeply 2 - D.

5 . minimisation of icon : image are the central element of today ’s operating system and typify folder , document and applications programme in their closed state . When you flick on them to open , the icon is still there , but clicking opens the detail and loads it into retentivity . Next - coevals operating systems will make items in their subject state — not their unsympathetic state represented by ikon — the central element . You ’ll be able to cringe or grow just about any physical object almost immeasurably in either direction , but size will be liquid , rather than binary — items will be establish in degrees of bigness , rather than either open or closed .

The combination of these elements means that the UI much disappears . And so does the learning curve for basic enjoyment . A child will be able to walk up to a third - generation PC and start bring around with it .

Does all this speech sound intimate ? These are the five centre element of the iPhone substance abuser interface . And they do not exist together in any other major merchandise .

The iPhone ’s relevance lies not in its convergency of phone and iPod or even the militarization of OS X , but that it ’s the first - ever , mass - market computer with a third - contemporaries UI .

Here ’s a link to a UI engineering science demonstration that combines everything : multi - touch , gestures , physical science , 3 - cholecalciferol and icon minimisation . Fasten your buns belt , if you have n’t seen it . This demo makes Jobs ’ keynote look as ho-hum as , well , a Bill Gates keynote : Perceptive Pixel founder Jeff Han demonstrates tomorrow ’s UI at the TED Conference in February 2006 .

In addition to the five UI elements , this demo also shows the hardware component required to use it comfortably : A “ drafting board ” silver screen that ’s grim and at a comfortable angle ; a large touch CRT screen ; very sinewy 3 - 500 graphics hardware ; high - public presentation file recovery ; and massive , stark naked processing exponent .

Breathtaking , is n’t it ? The just newsworthiness , is that you ’ll soon be able-bodied to buy a tiny one from Cingular .

But will the desktop edition of this third propagation UI amount from Apple , or Microsoft ?

My prediction : Both , and maybe Google will offer a variant as well . clock time will secernate . The important matter is that the instruction of the UI is clear . And it ’s truly , some might say deucedly , great .

[ Mike Elgan is a technology writer and former editor in chief ofWindows Magazine . He can be arrive at athis web log . ]