4) Ability to Mash Up Existing Applications

Mahdavi thinks the most valuable development to come from the iPhone SDK release may be the ability to more directly integrate, or mash up, different functionality from a number of applications.

"The mash-up is the key ability of the iPhone," Mahdavi says. Because the device runs on a full-featured version of Mac OS X it has the ability to provide tremendous functionality that's simply not available on Windows Mobile or BlackBerry devices, he says.

For instance, the Google Maps application that's currently available on the iPhone could be integrated with users' address books to, say, send an SMS text to all contacts within a specific geographic region by simply drawing a circle around that region and selecting the appropriate contacts, Mahdavi says.

"There's nothing like that available for devices running on the BlackBerry OS, at least that I know of," Mahdavi says.

5) Mobile Field Applications for CRM, Sales and Service

Silva expects that more and more business-specific applications developed for iPhone , like those from companies like SAP, which offers a mobile ERP application, and Oracle, which has its own Siebel CRM mobile application, will become available following the SDK's release. Such applications are already popular on the BlackBerry platform and Windows Mobile.