The device is irrelevant. What matters is who decides what runs on it — and charges to let things through.

The iPhone launched yesterday. Everyone is looking at the screen. The structure being built behind it will change who controls what can exist as a digital product.

The iPhone launched yesterday. The lines were long, the coverage was intense, and the product is genuinely impressive — a touch interface that works, a real browser in your pocket, hardware that feels like another generation. Most analysis will talk about what the iPhone does. I want to talk about what the iPhone reveals about what Apple will do next. Because what's happening is not the launch of a better phone. It's the foundation of a distribution platform that Apple will control more completely than any company has controlled any platform before.

The iPhone runs Apple's operating system, on Apple's hardware, distributed through an exclusive contract with AT&T. Apple has said the iPhone won't have third-party applications — that the way to build iPhone experiences is to develop web apps. That will change. Not because Apple will yield to developer pressure for native OS access, but because Apple will realize that a centralized app store, where it approves what enters and takes a cut of every transaction, is a more interesting business than the iPhone itself. The device sells once. The platform charges forever.

What's being built is a toll. Any company that wants to distribute software to iPhone users will need to go through Apple — and pay for the right. Any company that sells digital products inside iPhone apps will share revenue with Apple. Apple will have veto power over what can exist as a digital product on this platform. This isn't speculation about the distant future. It's the logical consequence of the model the iPhone establishes today: a proprietary OS, on controlled hardware, distributed through an exclusive channel. The question isn't whether Apple will use this power. It's when.

Leo Bentier