Apple Released the iPhone Eight Years Ago Today

[nj-morris]

I had the iPhone on launch day, and it was exciting, but it was obvious how long it had to go before it was a truly great product. So many things were missing -- things other phones already had at the time. The lack of 3G made the mobile web almost unusably slow. No GPS receiver made maps less useful. Couldn't sync with Exchange. Super slow CPU.

'There is no big step that does it. It's lots of little steps.'
How right you were. In baby steps, the iPhone became great. There was no single iPhone that really revolutionised the iPhone. It's still on the journey, but the iPhone has come a long way.

Um, there was a 4GB model initially....

Until it got discontinued the same year.

 

[Kajje]

You know I'm all into Apple and stuff but...
Calling the launch of an internet radio a potential historic moment, is - even in my ears - a little bit over the top.

 

[CmdrLaForge]

I didn't like the release back then. So far I had 2 - iPhone 3G and iPhone 5.

 

[KdParker]

Hm - I hadn't thought of it before, but I think you might be right. At the same time, I think making it exclusive to a single network was part of the agreement that made it so that the network had minimal branding on the device (just their name in the status bar.) Would it still be the iPhone if Apple had allowed the network to have any further control over the device? IE, if Verizon had been allowed to have their own exclusive app store?

True, who knows what carrier concessions Apple might have given to be on both carriers in the US and ATT definately benefited from the deal since they got tons of customers for those 4 years.

 

[oliversl]

Good times!
Nice memories from the golden age of Apple.

 

[kkar]

.

 

[MrGuder]

My first apple product was the iPod classic 30 gig and I still have it and works yet the battery doesn't hold much of a charge but that is a testament of build quality. I didn't get an iPhone till years later with the iPhone 5 but I'm heavily invested in iTunes and love the iPhone. I guess I have Steve jobs to thank for making great products that just work.

 

[MacFather]

Deleted.

 

[nikhsub1]

I've had every version of iphone including the original 8 years ago. All on launch day. I remember trying all kinds of smart phones at the time - all were terribly disappointing to me. The first iPhone was a true marvel at the time in comparison to what was available then - they all had keyboards and styluses and were super non user friendly. Funny to look back now and to see how limited the iphone was compared to today, but back then there was nothing like it.

 

[SactoGuy18]

In retrospect, the iPhone is perhaps the most influential product Apple ever made since the original Macintosh from 1984. It completely changed the way we use cellphones, popularizing Internet access through digital cellular far more than what the Palm Treo and the original Windows Mobile devices did.

 

[Daalseth]

Got my first iPhone about six....months ago.
You don't want to be an early adopter.
You never know if they're going to work out.

 

[QCassidy352]

The lack of 3G made the mobile web almost unusably slow. No GPS receiver made maps less useful. Couldn't sync with Exchange. Super slow CPU.

I agree about the GPS and exchange, but 2G and that cpu were totally fine for 2007. Now of course they seem archaic, but both the phone's speed and the web speed were perfectly good at the time.

 

[WestonHarvey1]

I remember, because it's my birthday

Happy Birthday!

 

[roland.g]

I thought it was $799 or more when it was first released and then there was a $200 price drop 3 months later.

I honestly can't remember but I think it went from $600 down to $400 and the people who bought it at $600 got $100 back from Apple, Store Credit of course. $800 would have been a big price tag to swallow and I don't think it would have sold that high. $600 is expensive, especially in 2007 for a phone, but still got enough people buying. I don't think I would have jumped at it for $800.

 

[jdillings]

You know I'm all into Apple and stuff but...
Calling the launch of an internet radio a potential historic moment, is - even in my ears - a little bit over the top.

Calling the launch of a portable mp3 player a potential historic moment, is - even in my ears - a little bit over the top.
Calling the launch of a smart phone a potential historic moment, is - even in my ears - a little bit over the top.
Calling the launch of a tablet a potential historic moment, is - even in my ears - a little bit over the top.

Why do people still doubt what Apple does? They have proven the critics wrong over and over again. Apple Music will succeed and will eventually dominate streaming.

 

[ThunderSkunk]

Eight years ago today, the smartphone market changed forever.

I drive down the road. Cars swerving all over because their drivers are staring at their phones.
I get to town. People on sidewalks ignoring each other headphones in staring into their phones.
I stop in a cafe. It's full of people ignoring each other with headphones in and staring into their phones.
I have a conversation with someone. They're somewhere else, interrupted every 20 seconds by their phone.

Thanks Apple.

 

[jdillings]

And the next day, Google scrapped their Android phone and created a clone of the iPhone.

 

[iBlazed]

I still remember standing in line at the Apple Store in Mission Viejo anxiously waiting to try out this new tech..
2007 seems so long ago...

I miss Mission Viejo so much. What a beautiful place. My family moved from there to NJ back in 1994 and I've been trying to move back for a while now. Just trying to find a job in the OC.

And as for the topic, I still have my original iPhone. Good times.

 

[iGeek2014]

In the UK, O2 had the iPhone exclusively.

The way you got one was very different to what had been the norm up until then.

Traditionally, you went in, selected a phone, paid and walked out with your new phone and SIM all working.

With the iPhone, you paid your fee (£269 from memory) and then went home, hooked it up to iTunes and selected and signed up to an O2 tariff and then the phone was activated.

A friend of mine (also on O2) and I got the original iPhones when stores were clearing out for £159 in 2008, readying up for the release of the 3G.

We got them back, hooked them up to our PCs, activated and jailbroke them and stuck our existing O2 SIMs in them!

They were the days!

I remember having to drive all the way over to Stoke-on-Trent to collect my iPhone 3G as I'd missed the delivery driver and then having to sync with iTunes to 'activate' the device.

They were indeed the days!

 

[0098386]

That was a weird song in the video, sounded like there were 2 songs playing at once.

 

[WestonHarvey1]

I agree about the GPS and exchange, but 2G and that cpu were totally fine for 2007. Now of course they seem archaic, but both the phone's speed and the web speed were perfectly good at the time.

I think if someone handed you a first gen iPhone with the 1.0 software right now you'd remember how underpowered the CPU was. App switching could be absolutely painful. It was common for the SMS app to hang for 5 or more seconds before coming responsive.

Once the App Store opened, and you were no longer running just the nicely optimized Apple apps, the thing really showed what a dog it was.

Still, it was an exciting time and an exciting new product. I miss those days.

 

[Jakexb]

Only 8 years? Crazy to think how much things have changed.

 

[WestonHarvey1]

I honestly can't remember but I think it went from $600 down to $400 and the people who bought it at $600 got $100 back from Apple, Store Credit of course. $800 would have been a big price tag to swallow and I don't think it would have sold that high. $600 is expensive, especially in 2007 for a phone, but still got enough people buying. I don't think I would have jumped at it for $800.

Yup. I got my $100 credit and I think I bought an iPod Shuffle with it.

 

[EthanLMT]

My 3G is a dedicated Sleep Cycle alarm clock. In Airplane mode so it doesn't rearrange my brain cells while I'm asleep...

My 3G is literally a paperweight

 

[macs4nw]

I remember excitedly watching a demo of Google's experimental mobile OS, Android, a few months before the iPhone's release. I saw it on this wacky YouTube site, which hosted many low quality videos to be played in boxes with large gradated buttons. The experimental OS was running on some BlackBerry device using button-based navigation. The iPhone just blew me away.

And yet even today there are still those who deny that Android wasn't heavily influenced by iOS through Eric Schmidt's tenure on the board of Apple, a fact Steve must have lamented till his dying day.