Steve Jobs and his friends have finally showed their new baby to the rest of us, and yet another user experience won’t be the same anymore. This time around, Apple is about to change the way we use a phone, much like it changed the way we listen to music with the iPod, or the way we use a personal computer with the Mac. In and by itself, changing the way we use a phone is a pretty ambitious goal, but I must believe that Steve is after an even more ambitious one: changing the way we deal with information, and he has a better shot at it than anybody else. Here is why.

With the iPhone, Apple is trying to combine three devices into one: an iPod, a mobile phone, and an Internet communicator. Most attempts at blending multiple devices into a satisfying user experience almost always end up with failure. At best, they produce something akin to a Swiss Army knife, a jack-of-all-trades doing multiple things poorly. At worse, they deliver a monster of a device, something only Frankenstein could be proud of. But when a maniacal focus is put on the user experience instead of the feature list, magic happens, and something new and valuable and beautiful is created. Steve did that with the Mac 23 years ago. He did it again today. iPod was just a stepping stone.

The key in making something like the iPhone work is coming up with the right form factor, and the right user interface. The form factor has to be small and leightweight enough that you can carry the device in your pants’ pocket without noticing it. I realized that when I switched to the BlackBerry Pearl, and I won’t go for anything thicker anytime soon. The user interface has to provide the right combination of user controls and display screen that will make user interactions instantaneous (zero boot time), intuitive (single home button), and effective (multi-touch). But things cannot be too small either, especially if you want the Web browser to work, and that is where a 3.5″ screen with automatic display orientation and snappy zooming makes everything work.

Then comes the secret sauce. Apple understands something about customers better than any other company: the power of love. If you can make your customers love your product, they will reward you beyond your wildest expectations. Problem is, I’ve never fallen in love with a phone, and I do not know anyone who did fall in love with any kind of mobile Internet communication device. But I know a lot of people who love their iPod, and that’s where the iPhone combination really rocks: take a good mobile phone, add a Web browser that really works, spray some good old iPod love on it, and you get something that is just irresistible.

So what does it have to do with our goal — I should say Steve’s goal — of changing the way we deal with information? Well, I’m glad you’re asking, because it shows that you did not forget the original promise, and it really matters. It matters so much that Steve Jobs had to show us complex charts during his keynote to really make the idea sink in, so it’s no surprise that it’s taking me several paragraphs to come to it. Here it is: if you can make a Web browser really work on a device that fits in your pocket, and if you can convince tens, if not hundreds of millions of people to carry it with them all the time because they’re so much in love with it, then you have a way to make information and the transactions we make on it truly mobile. And if you do so in combination with the right set of online services (think Yahoo! Mail as was announced today, but also Google and .Mac), you get the perfect vehicle to enable the mobile revolution that so many have claimed, but so few have truly experienced.

Let’s double click now, and focus on the implications for the Office 2.0 revolution that is so dear to our hearts — or mine at least. What the iPhone brings to the table is synchronization that actually works, for everything from contacts, to events, bookmarks, and pictures. That’s nice. But because you also get a full fledged Web browser backed with EDGE (and soon 3G, as Steve indicated) and Wi-Fi, you also have the ability to access all your data, always, from anywhere. All of a sudden, the need for high connectivity has been addressed, much sooner than anyone might have expected.

The rationale for Office 2.0 should be pretty obvious to you if you’re reading this blog, but it would take years for most end users to really understand the benefits of the concept, and make the leap of faith that is required to move from what they know and works (Office 1.0 productivity suites) to what they’re being sold and might break (Office 2.0). So instead of evangelizing the concept, Steve and his folks will put a working version of it in many pockets, all at once. They’ll start with 10 millions in 2008, and if the iPod’s success is any indication, most users of Office 1.0 productivity suites should have been exposed to the idea before the end of the decade.

I have not seen a working iPhone yet, and I probably won’t before June. But if I believe the promise that was made today, the iPhone really is about to change the way we deal with information, and might be the most efficient promoter for the Office 2.0 concept this year and next. For it, I am grateful to Steve and his team, of which my dear friend Dave is a member. I could not get anything out of him — not that I ever tried — but the wait was definitely worth it. Bravo!