We have all heard the exciting news regarding the official announcement of Apple’s iPhone. If not, check out the stevenote on Apple’s website. I know it sounds cliché, but it is truly a revolutionary product in all sense of the word. This product will change the way we use our mobile devices and retrieve information. No more worrying about having to stop at an internet cafe or stop to get directions while on vacation. No more having to juggle between multiple devices in our pocket. No more having to wait for trivial information like movie times and weather.

After absorbing all of this, I started to think about how microformats fit into the picture. Now that we are able to retrieve a full XHTML webpage with Safari on a mobile device, we are also able to retrieve microformatted data. What does this mean in terms of how we add contacts to our address book, add events to our calendar or find a location on a map? It sounds like the processes can be streamlined. With hCard we can add a new contact (including a photo for quick recognition!) or find out the location of a business with Google Calendar. With hCalendar we can add an event to our calendar (assuming the calendar supports adding new events). All of this can be possible without typing anything or syncing data from our Mac/PC. Of course all of this is theoretical, but imagine how easy organization will be. It will be exciting to see if microformats ever make it to consumer devices for purposes such as this.

It was already demonstrated that the iPhone already has the ability to dial numbers from locations found on Google Maps. It seems that Google uses their own closed standards/algorithms to parse the information from websites and somehow sends the extracted information to the iPhone. What about the rest of the sites out there that have just as good information to offer? If the move to an open standard like microformats is made, similar functionality can be had on any website that implements the appropriate microformat.

Oh also, I bought an Apple TV today as an impulse buy. It ships out on March 2nd!