Apple co-founder Steve Jobs was not impressed with smartphones. He described them as “not easy” to use and “not so smart.” These featured a combination of a phone plus e-mail and, as he put it, a “baby internet into one device” with “little plastic keyboards on them.”
So, Jobs and his Apple company decided to develop and produce the first-ever iPhone, a mobile device that he called “revolutionary” – and released the first iPhone on June 29, 2007.
Jobs called Apple’s “reinvention” of the smartphone as an “interplay of hardware and software” in his keynote speech at the product’s launch.
Since then, the company has released 42 models – selling an incredible 2.3 billion units of the iPhone, according to cnbc.com’s Sydney Boyo in his article “How the Apple iPhone became one of the best-selling products of all time.”
On its 17th anniversary, this piece tells the story of the iPhone’s initial failure to capture a wider market and how things turned around in favor of Apple after it introduced the App Store a year later. More iPhones were sold, and the tech company strengthened its ecosystem even more, Boyo reported.
The iPhone changed the way mobile phones were designed and how their users did a lot of things, including how they socialize. It offered new ways to communicate, and its software offerings and hardware features redefined how messages were exchanged, video calls were made, e-mails were sent, and how online social interaction was conducted.
Yes, the first iPhone is definitely a far cry from its current iteration. However, not only did the first edition begin to set the tone for shaping the modern mobile phones, tablets, and other gadgets we use today. It also showed a myriad of possibilities for how we connect with (and disconnect from) the rest of the world. How, you ask? Let us count the ways.
Organizing convos
Text messages in older phone models were all stored in the inbox. There used to be a time when phones could keep a limited number of messages, so you had to delete a couple to make sure you received newer texts. The first iPhone changed all that by enabling multiple text messages to be saved in one thread for every person you message with. Jobs gave a demonstration of the multiple chat sessions that can be done in the first iPhone in 2007. He also introduced the dot iPhone users are familiar with that helps them identify unread messages. By 2011, iPhone introduced the iMessage, Apple’s exclusive messaging feature for all its devices. iMessages can now exchange photos, videos, voice messages, locations, documents, and more.
The fall of calls
Do you believe that people should text first before they call? Nowadays, “calling someone can be stressful to the recipient,” wrote Heather Kelly in The Washington Post. The etiquette nowadays, according to her, includes messaging someone to ask if it’s a good time to call. And while you’re at it, it’s best to indicate why you are calling, so they decide if they will take the call or not. Kelly adds that even video calls should be made with advance notification so the other party can prepare and take the call. Just calling is considered intrusive by some because they believe a message could be sent instead. Calls nowadays are mostly for emergencies or if a topic is too long or complicated to explain through text. Partly due to the ease, ubiquity, and organization of texts through iPhone innovations, calling has become a sort of last-ditch, for-emergencies-only option.
The stylus goes out of style
The first iPhone effectively made styluses obsolete. Jobs told his audience that their phones will use “the best pointing device in the world,” our fingers. Apple introduced the multi-touch technology in the first iPhone. The Apple co-founder described the feature as “more accurate than any touch display that’s ever been shipped.” It allows the screen to recognize the presence of one or multiple points of contact. Remember when phones had either too many buttons or too few (three letters per number)? The first iPhone had a Qwerty keyboard on the screen and that just made typing easier. It also encouraged many to spell words fully (and correctly) instead of sending an entire text message full of shortcuts. Sure, some still use acronyms such as BRB (be right back) or LMK (let me know), but the technology paved the way for us to doodle on our screens, send iMessages with effects, and more.
Less log-ins
Apps on iPhones give us direct access to our social media accounts, e-mail, and messaging apps. There’s no need to log in unless we indicate on our security settings to do so. We can directly access our social media feeds to post, share, react, delete, promote, create, sell, buy, and do whatever we want online. When households shared desktops and laptops to access Friendster (a social network page that closed in 2015) years ago, people had to log in and make sure they log out of their accounts. But the app store allows users to install apps and decide on their level of security and access to these. Notification alerts appraise us not only of actions pending from our end but the activities of accounts we follow as well.
Homebound
App stores have now made shopping and ordering food easier. Access to products and services is ever-increasing – challenging brick-and-mortar establishments to offer experiences to coax people out of their homes. Gadgets (not just iPhones) have also made some glued to their devices which is not entirely a bad thing, as long as we’re still getting our share of in-person social interaction. Aside from eating and shopping, the app store has redefined many activities, such as gaming, exercise, driving and navigation, banking, traveling – just about everything, really.
Internet in the palm of your hand
Jobs happily walked his audience through Safari and how the first iPhone made multi-page browsing available. The goal was to “bring the real internet to your phone,” he said. The first iPhone has the “first rich HTML e-mail on a phone,” “the best version of Google Maps,” widgets, and Wi-Fi networking. There’s no need to bring a laptop if you’ll just need to browse, answer e-mails, and find a place.
Awesome snaps in a snap
The first iPhone had a two-megapixel camera and a 3.5-inch display screen. The latest model, the iPhone 15, has a 48-megapixel camera the company said is akin to having “seven pro lenses in your pocket.” Creating content is possible for anyone these days. Videos and photos can go viral in a few minutes when posted online. Reacting to content is also easy, with comments, emojis, shares, and likes coming from anywhere in the world for unrestricted accounts.