If anybody remembers or is a fan of Tome Lehrer, they may recall his mocking paean to New Math, (i.e. so easy that only a child could do it). The interface for the iPhone and upcoming iPad is exactly that. Adults when faced with an iPhone for the first time needs to figure it out for a bit until they connect with their inner child and the “a-ha ” moment happens and it’s all peaches and cream after that. Kids being kids, have no trouble with Apple’s interface and get it right away. Mike Elgan has a nice article in Computerworld where he predicts the biggest users and thus customers of Apple’s iPad will be kids, probably young kids. Sure, Jeff Bezos is shitting bricks the size of ingots from Fort Knox that the iPad will  reduce to the Kindle’s marketshare to single digits (or less if that’s possible), but the iPad will probable be used mainly by the younger market set as a entertainment center for games, movies  and music, in other words, a great big iTouch.

And in a few years these kids will grow up, so touch interfaces will be the norm for them and their kids and eventually their kids’ kids. Thus St. Steve will have changed the world again (current lawsuit against HTC notwithstanding).