Coming Soon, to a Mob Near You

If you don't already own an Apple iPhone, now might be the time to pick one up—so you have a little time to learn how it works, before it changes forever.

Yesterday, Apple released a "software development kit" for the iPhone. An SDK is a set of code libraries and other resources for software programmers: it's not the sort of thing that usually leads to press coverage in the mainstream media. But this is Apple we're talking about—the company that likes to "think different": the demand for this SDK was so high that it briefly brought down the Apple.com website.

Who knew there were so many eager programmers waiting in the wings?

The iPhone SDK will allow people, for the first time, to develop their own applications for the iPhone. Till now, every program running on the iPhone was under the strict control of Apple itself: they alone were dictating what web browser I could use, what email program, what games. Till now, the pretty little black box was under lock and key.

Now, Apple's thrown it to the smart mob.

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The term "smart mob" was first introduced1 to describe a then-new trend in mobile technology: the use of SMS text messages to coordinate the efforts of large, otherwise-unconnected hordes of people, often for impromptu raves: an SMS would get sent to an entire "thumb tribe" to meet at this warehouse, or that vacant lot. The push of a few buttons was enough to mobilize a mob of people with a common goal—to go out dancing.

The technique was quickly adopted by political activists, who were able to use their mobile phones to communicate with one another to stay one step ahead of law enforcement during protests; and even by foot soldiers on the ground in Iraq, whose first-hand intel was often more reliable than what they were receiving from HQ.

But the term also overlaps with the idea of "collective intelligence," which underpins many of the wider trends taking place on the Internet: customer-written product reviews, wikis, and social networking sites (like Digg and del.icio.us) are founded on the premise that if you solicit opinions from a wide enough pool of people, truth will out.2 Eventually, the "smart mob" will ensure that the best products receive the best reviews and that the Wikipedia articles are accurate. Democracy (of a sort) and free market economy (of a sort) combine till the smart mob is smarter than any of its individuals.

Which is why, if you are Apple and you want to load the iPhone with "killer apps," you don't have to build or code or even conceive of any of them. All you have to do is ask the smart mob. Give them the tools, and let them build the killer apps for you.3

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1. By Howard Rheingold, in his 2002 book of the same name.

2. As famous and influential as Wikipedia, the effect of the release of the photos from Abu Ghraib prison can also be considered a consequence of the "smart mob": once the information hit the network, the interpretation of that information was no longer in control of the spin doctors, but rather, the smart mob.

3. Another recent SDK release that caused mainstream excitement was Facebook's: the majority of that site's content was developed not by Facebook but by third-party developers, who used the SDK to create the numerous applications—Vampires, Scrabulous—that make the site so fun and so annoying. Tim Hartford recently equated this to the furniture store Ikea—a store that gives you the tools to design and build your own furniture, and depends on you to do all the heavy lifting.