Apple has shown true genius in user interface and hardware design, so it is difficult to second- guess an innovative product such as the recently announced iPhone. I’ve claimed that we will all eventually have “a ubiquitous device we ‘can’t do without’—an inevitable evolution of technology that is almost part of us” (TSN, August 2005, p. 4, and VUI Visions, p. 169). Steve Jobs, in introducing the iPhone, characterized it as Apple changing another product category, the phone, just as the early Macintosh changed PCs and the iPod changed audio players. Is the iPhone innovative enough to inspire a category we “can’t do without”? The iPhone user interface features a touch screen and a graphical user interface (GUI). GUIs have certainly proved their effectiveness with larger screens, but the verdict is still out whether a GUI is as usable on complex multi-function devices with a small screen and often with only one hand free (if any). I believe that the Voice User Interface (VUI)—with speech recognition at the core—will play a key and necessary role on these small devices, whether the speech technology is in the device or the network.