Some analysts are predicting that the device -- a combination cell phone, MP3 player and personal digital assistant -- will create more revenue for Apple than its computer sales do.

Allaying early concerns, the company has updated the iPhone's battery. It also changed the touch screen from plastic to optical glass, which offers better scratch protection and image clarity.

Using a touchscreen instead of buttons, Apple's latest offers a new phone interface. However, CEO Steve Jobs' information about it at the recent Worldwide Developers Conference didn't please everyone in the audience.

Though the iPhone will be open to developers of third-party software programs, the developers will have to work within the Safari Web browser that Apple has built into the device. Building "native" applications that get into the heart of the iPhone's capabilities will have to come later.

And let's assume that it will, because third-party programs can be the key to the success of a mobile device: Think of all the programs that made Palm hand-held devices so attractive as they extended the basic functionality of calendar, contact manager and notepad. No, I think this is a temporary restriction aimed at ensuring security and stability as the iPhone enters the market. Competing as it does with devices such as Palm's Treo, the iPhone will demand its share of innovative software add-ons down the road.

Innovation is what's behind another Jobs announcement at the Worldwide Developer Conference. And although it hasn't met with great enthusiasm, I think Apple's decision to create a Windows version of its Safari browser is quite interesting.

The free browser comes in XP and Vista variants and is available now (www.apple.com/safari). I would offer my own caveats about stability and performance. An early release, Safari for Windows, is buggy and in my experience renders some pages poorly.

Jobs made a point about Safari's knockout speed at the conference, using Web browser benchmarks from iBench to show Safari outpacing both Internet Explorer and the open source Firefox.

I can't quarrel with benchmarks, but my own workday sessions with Safari show no particular speed advantage. Lacking Firefox's collection of useful plug-in tools and already under serious hacker attack, Safari will need tuning up as it adapts to Windows. There is every reason to assume that such tune-ups are under way.

I said that Safari is interesting, and here's why: Jobs, whose mercurial gift is to see opportunity where others see danger, is flirting with open-source software code in this browser. The Safari "rendering engine" -- responsible for displaying formatted content on the screen -- is based on code developed by the Linux community and widely used in Konqueror, a Linux browser. And Apple is sharing its enhancements to that code with the development project that continues to feed Konqueror.

This is what you are supposed to do with open-source projects, which rely on contributions that are open for all to modify and enhance. But for Apple, which has always been secretive about software development, this growing involvement with open-source signals that Jobs is thinking about new ways to compete with Microsoft. A new browser working with accepted open standards, as Firefox does and Safari seems designed to do, helps pressure Gates and company to keep Internet Explorer on the same standards track.

I suspect that Jobs is throwing Safari into this mix to see what will happen, curious if the open-source process really will deliver. But talk about a new paradigm: Open source draws not just from company employees but from a worldwide community of developers.

Only parts of Safari are open source, but tweaking the underlying browser engine in an open way that can be studied by all benefits anyone using the Net and can foster real innovation.

Meanwhile, study how Jobs has rebuilt Apple and where that process seems to be going. Confined to a relatively small market share now thought to be nearing 5 percent, Apple's computers are suddenly receiving plenty of attention because of noncomputer products such as the iPod and now the iPhone. Using an iPod and iTunes for Windows is for some people a route into Apple's computers, especially now that software such as Boot Camp and Parallels allows people to run Windows and the Mac's OS X on the same machine.

With a new version of the OS X operating system coming out in October, be aware that Mac sales are in the midst of a significant growth move, with shipments jumping 38 percent in 2005 and 17 percent in 2006.

The new iPhone might, like the iPod, prove to be the kind of Trojan horse that gets Apple technology into the hands of Windows users. Apple writes supple, appealing software that might be its ace in the hole as the company's allure captures new categories of users.

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