On January 9, 2007, Apple CEO Steve Jobs gave the world its first look at the iPhone, as well as a glimpse into the radically new future of personal computers and communications.
“This is not just a best-selling gadget. It is the most influential of all ever created. The infrastructure that created the iPhone has also “turned on” drones, smart home gadgets, devices, and self-driving cars,” Wired wrote in a 2018 retrospective of the iPhone’s first decade.
The first iPhone offered a touchscreen, a powerful camera, and easy Internet access among other things, providing huge advantages over smartphones of the time, such as the Blackberry, Moto Q, and Palm Treo.
“Sometimes a revolutionary product comes along that changes everything,” boasted Jobs, dressed in his trademark black turtleneck, at the Macworld Expo in San Francisco, where he introduced Apple’s new product.
Apple’s co-founder noted that the Macintosh “changed the entire computer industry” in 1984, and the iPod (introduced on the same day, January 9, as the iPhone, but in 2001) “changed the entire music industry.”
On that day in 2007, Jobs said he would introduce three revolutionary products, including a “widescreen touch-controlled iPod” and a “breakthrough communications device.” The Macworld audience erupted into a standing ovation when he mentioned that a mobile phone was among the offerings. Until 2007, Apple had not yet entered the then-burgeoning smartphone market, so tech enthusiasts eagerly awaited the pioneering computer giant’s entry into the segment.
Tame Power BI and predict the future of your company.
REGISTER!
As it turned out, all three announced positions were combined in one device, which Jobs called the iPhone.
The first generation of iPhones was very different from the ones we see in use today. For one thing, the device was small at just 4.5 inches by 2.4 inches. By comparison, the 2018 iPhone XS Max measures 6.2 inches by 3.05 inches,” Stephen Silver wrote for Apple Insider in 2018.
Apple’s latest iPhone 14 model now comes with a 6.7-inch version.
The first iPhone had no third-party apps, had 16GB of flash memory, and only worked on AT&T’s notoriously slow and unreliable EDGE GSM network. However, the device became not only an important stage in the development of the future generation of smartphones, but was also marked by extreme popularity. Apple sold 6.1 million first-generation iPhones from the time the product was released to the public on June 29, 2007, until it was discontinued on July 15, 2008.
The first person to buy the first generation of iPhone is 59-year-old Greg Packer, a former highway maintenance specialist from Long Island. Packer became the owner of the novelty after spending the whole week in a tent in front of the Apple Store on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan.
In July 2016, Apple surpassed the mark of 1 billion sold iPhones, and a year later reported that it had already surpassed 1.2 billion smartphone sales. In 2021, iPhone sales accounted for 52% of Apple’s total sales of $365 billion. As of September 2021, the Cupertino company sold 2 billion iPhones, and Today, there are about 800 million Apple smartphones in use in the world – about one device for every 10 people on the planet.
The iPhone and the technological advancements it imposed on other smartphones had a profound impact on people’s lifestyles and spawned a new industry of accessory, app, and social networking developers.
“Millions of people use iPhone as their only computer. It is a camera, GPS device, music player, communicator, scheduler, communication and payment tool. It’s the whole world in our pocket,” Wired notes.
People’s lives have changed with the advent of the iPhone and its followers – meeting up with friends, attending concerts or sporting events is rarely complete without a device that now keeps a daily record: it stores your tickets, money or media files. But whether the iPhone has brought net benefit to society remains to be seen.
“In 2007, when the iPhone debuted, people greeted it with enthusiasm. It was seen as another useful way to stay in sync with family, friends and community. But hasn’t this line between work and personal time become even more blurred because of the device? And has it become a substitute for a “real” relationship?” Heidi Hackford wrote for the Computer History Museum in 2018.
For those who want to be nostalgic, here is the full version of Apple’s historic 2007 presentation.
Source: Foxnews
