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Apple Released the iPhone Eight Years Ago Today
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My first was a 3G. It's been used daily by various members of my family as it keeps getting handed down. Original battery. Always wears a case and a screen proctor. Still looks great and works swell…
...sometimes to advantage. Last month when that crazy reboot character sequence was being sent about, my kid's friends kept trying to send it as a prank. They'd send it off and wait for my kid's reaction. When there was no reaction they started shouting, "Hey how come it doesn't work on your phone?!!"
Too old to fail.
...sometimes to advantage. Last month when that crazy reboot character sequence was being sent about, my kid's friends kept trying to send it as a prank. They'd send it off and wait for my kid's reaction. When there was no reaction they started shouting, "Hey how come it doesn't work on your phone?!!"
Too old to fail.
Apple changed the market, and for the better.
Not in everything. For example, before the iPhone came along and screwed things up with mass consumers and corporate greed:
- We had $30 - $40 unlimited data plans and almost zero congestion. Mass data usage killed those.
- Data plans were not even required. You could activate a smartphone for WiFi use only. After Apple/ATT showed that people would bend over to such a requirement, other carriers did the same.
- Smartphone apps could be downloaded from anywhere, and the OS/phone maker certainly did not control what apps were available.
- Most importantly, the mass population actually talked to each other at dinner. Today's society is a giant mess of people tied to their devices, especially younger people. Definitely not for the better, IMHO.
The device you saw was a Windows Mobile phone. Nobody back then would've tried to compete with Blackberry.
Instead, Android was created to compete with Windows Mobile, which is why it was designed for both keyboard and touch devices. (Google was afraid that MS would try to control the mobile search world.)
Our mobile touch lab saw nothing new in what Apple did. However, we were very happy that Apple brought a lot of stuff out into the public eye, because it greatly increased the worth of our own experience
I was using a Treo 650 at the time the iPhone came out. When they announced it and it was only 2G with no app support, no multitasking, etc. I didn't pay it any mind.
It wasn't until the iPhone 4 that I felt the platform had matured enough for me to buy into it. And I did, and I've had an iPhone until this day and love them.
It wasn't until the iPhone 4 that I felt the platform had matured enough for me to buy into it. And I did, and I've had an iPhone until this day and love them.
I believe both the hardware and the software need to change. The iPhone's design is not the best anymore. It has been almost the same all these years. Yes, they have been many iterations and the hardware gets better and better, but it is still the same..I prefer the design of HTC's One phones. Even Samsung (which I do not like), has done a lot of things to improve their design. I believe that the iPhone 6 is ugly. My smartphone should make me feel like I want to hold it in my hands and the iPhone just doesn't do it anymore..
On the software side, I want to see a new home screen implementation. iOS 9 still doesn't solve that, so I will have to wait and hope that iOS 10 changes the home screen..
I hate contracts because you pay for the phone two or three times before it's over. When the 3S came out I ran the numbers and it didn't matter if I went with Rogers or Bell or Telus, a ~$500 phone ended up costing ~$1500. Buy it outright and pay month to month and you end up saving a s***load of money.
If you don't have use cases (ie, apps) for data, what would you gain from unlimited data? It's like saying, I wish they wouldn't have invented electricity, I then wouldn't have to pay an electricity bill.
You could always get plans without any data. They just wouldn't come with $500 subsidies, but that's life, you can't have your cake and eat it.
You mean you could download apps from anywhere as long as it was the carrier store instead of the phone OS maker's store?[/QUOTE]
Well, I think it had to. I remember pre-iPhone there was of course the iPod but the Apple stores would open at 10am or whatever time and very often there wouldn't be any foot traffic for an hour or two. Just employees cleaning screens and fidgeting with tech.
I used to train employees on giving these seminars that lasted an hour (sometimes more) in store with theaters and the whole deal. With a smash success like the iPhone (equivalent of changing the tech game like the iMac did) the company had to evolve fast. Much mor customer base and dealing with lots of othe companies not just 1st party issues. Activating in the store for instance was a complete disaster for years.
Internally Apple had a phrase called 'surprise & delight' it was sort of a demo model that employees would go through to show products. I remember the week leading up to the launch Apple did a massive public 'surprise & delight' program on Apple.com revolving around he iPhone in which everyday they announced a new app/feature that would be included on the iPhone not previously announced (I remember the YouTube app being the big one). They even gave us shirts to wear everyday counting down that week. I still have them! I mean the push from the top down was so seamless and detail oriented it was almost crazy.
Followed by the launch LOTS of new hires came on board rapidly being trained solely on the mobile departments and not in the company itself. The training I was giving shifted drastically and it was obvious Apple saw the future of mobile tech. They were 1,000% right but the culture changed for Apple like Apple changed the culture outside of its walls. It was definitely interesting to watch! I remember this adorable blonde girl coming on board at one of the stores trained solely in iPhone. She basically talked to other bleach blonde girls about the iPhone all day. She could barely use a trackpad; but she worked. She sold the phones like mad to her demographic. Stuff like that started to happen.
I equate it to a local band getting signed...they just can't play the same clubs they used. There has to be rapid growth. Apple led the mobile revolution; straight up, no questions ask. I'm not sure if they were fully prepared for that and changes were made fast. The right changes, but with it the culture shifted internally.
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Happy Birthday iPhone!
Yes, I was there on June 29, 2007 and bought an iPhone at the Fashion Island (California) Apple Store. I remember heading over after work just to see what the line was like, and all of the Apple employees were reassuring folks in line that they had phones for everyone in line. Plus they had, IIRC, bottled water and bagged cookies for folks in line. That was enough to get me to wait for my day one phone! I still have it as a memento, although it has long since stopped being my phone. It also served a term as a iPod proxy for my niece, where it was left in Airplane Mode the entire time. Having survived that, it is now permanently retired as a memento of the first multi-touch phone.
Yes, I was there on June 29, 2007 and bought an iPhone at the Fashion Island (California) Apple Store. I remember heading over after work just to see what the line was like, and all of the Apple employees were reassuring folks in line that they had phones for everyone in line. Plus they had, IIRC, bottled water and bagged cookies for folks in line. That was enough to get me to wait for my day one phone! I still have it as a memento, although it has long since stopped being my phone. It also served a term as a iPod proxy for my niece, where it was left in Airplane Mode the entire time. Having survived that, it is now permanently retired as a memento of the first multi-touch phone.
I didn't get the original iPhone in 2007 because I was just a year into my 2 year contract with my Palm Treo 700p (Verizon), plus the original iPhone wasn't 3G and it was very expensive. So when the iPhone 3G came out in 2008, I got one as soon as my contract with Verizon was up and switched to AT&T (since they had the exclusive). I loved the iPhone so much I ended up selling it as soon as the next model came out each year: I had the 3G, 3GS, 4, 4S, I ended up skipping the 5 for various reasons but got the 5s when it came out in 2013 which is what I am still using today. I did have a 6 Plus for a week but returned it for a few reasons and decided to wait for the Fall 2015 model.
My iPhone history
2008 - iPhone 2G
2008 - iPhone 3G
2010 - No iPhone (made the mistake of reverting to an old fashion Nokia phone)
2012 - iPhone 3GS
2014 - iPhone 4S
I could have got a 6 Plus this year, but since I hate iOS 7/8 with a passion I'm just gonna stick with my 4S on iOS 6.
2008 - iPhone 2G
2008 - iPhone 3G
2010 - No iPhone (made the mistake of reverting to an old fashion Nokia phone)
2012 - iPhone 3GS
2014 - iPhone 4S
I could have got a 6 Plus this year, but since I hate iOS 7/8 with a passion I'm just gonna stick with my 4S on iOS 6.
I remember queueing up outside of O2 in the UK for this back in 2007. A lot of friends and family made fun of me for buying one. Fast forward to today and everyone of them are using iPhones lol.
This didn't even have 3G back then lol EDGE only.
Since its launch I have purchased the new model every year and this year will be no different. iPhone 6 Plus in rose gold please!
This didn't even have 3G back then lol EDGE only.
Since its launch I have purchased the new model every year and this year will be no different. iPhone 6 Plus in rose gold please!
AT&T did not subsidize the first iPhone, which is why it cost so much. You just paid in the Apple Store and then took it hope and activated it through iTunes and chose your plan. It wasn't until the iPhone 3g came out that you signed a contract in store and AT&T subsidized it bringing the price down to $199.
It is easy with years of hindsight to criticize someone's opinion. But you have to remember that Balmer was going by what he saw at the time and he was commenting as a competitor. He was correct in that the iPhone at launch was too expensive, and Apple confirmed that when they dropped the price just a few months later by $200 on Sept 6, 2007. He was also correct in that the iPhpne did sell well.
Where he was wrong was with the business customers caring about a real keyboard as we all know what happened to Blackberry. I have to admit even with using iPhones since 2008 I still have trouble typing on the keyboard, thankfully voice dictation works really well.
