Who'll be the first person to write an entire novel on their iPhone? You know there'll be one - and it'll probably be about something equally zeitgeist like "Novelty USB gadgets I have used in Apple Store bathrooms - written on my iPhone!" - but the big question really is how they'll write it. Apple's decision to leave out a text editor from the handset left a few smartphone-faithful scratching their heads, but developer Kevin Warnock is hoping to salve their troubled brows with his gOffice iPhone word processor.

So far functionality errs on the basic side - with no copy & paste option on the iPhone there are some who query whether this can even be described as a word processor - but the ability to create and email Word-compatible documents could realistically be seen as a boon for the occasionally-writing professional. Robert Scoble (who you could never accuse of lacking enthusiasm) met up with Warnock at the iPhone developers' conference and, if you watch the above video, seemed pretty damn impressed, although others have found file sizes in this first release to be unexpectedly large.If you try it out, let us know how you get on in the comments. What's most telling, perhaps, is the length of time it took to develop the app - over three weeks, apparently, and that's with some parts of it pre-scripted. The lack of a dedicated SDK really seems to be hitting programmers hard.

Related: Video demo: Taking gOffice for a spin

gOffice [via Scobelizer]