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iPhone Was Missing These 10 Essential Features When Unveiled in 2007

I always like to pat myself in the back because the original iPhone was something it seemed obvious would be huge.

Some things it was obvious that would quickly show up (copy paste and app store), after all it was just a computer, others would improve with technology/affordability (3G, GPS) and others were either irrelevant (MMS photos or whatever) or perfectly acceptable trade offs (keyboard or pen, screen size offers so much more in other areas).

To be fair I thought the iPad would be larger than it is today.
 
I'm one of those who thought the iPod wouldn't be a hit. I was of course wrong, but ended up being kinda correct in the long run. My reasoning then was that it was basically a one trick pony - it played music and had limited input possibilities with just a click wheel. I always thought the iPhone would be a big hit because of everything that it could do, even limited originally.
/humblebrag
 
I bought one a few days after release — I wanted to read some real-world experiences.

Yes, it had many shortcomings, but please remember that The Steve was praying to his god (probably his reflection in the mirror) that it would work during the live demo. Apple was on the ragged edge of over-promising and under-delivering!

For me, the best, most fantastic feature was visual voice-mail. Yeah, and the overall experience.

I've had many versions of the iPhone and have never looked back with regret.
 
azentropy said:
I'm one of those who thought the iPod wouldn't be a hit. I was of course wrong, but ended up being kinda correct in the long run. My reasoning then was that it was basically a one trick pony - it played music and had limited input possibilities with just a click wheel. I always thought the iPhone would be a big hit because of everything that it could do, even limited originally.
/humblebrag
Click to expand...
To be fair, it was a two trick pony. Playing music and Firewire harddrive.
 
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It seems silly that those things were missing... But it was still an amazing and revolutionary device at the time. I still remember the day I picked mine up from the Apple store and taking it out of the box.
 
joloriquelme said:
I was a vivid Windows Mobile fan, and had a pair of Xperia Windows phones. The second was a disaster.

Then, my first iPhone: the 4. 2010-launch day. The real one. The useful.

From this, only iPhone.
Click to expand...
Same. The first viable iPhone. The first three either had painfully slow connectivity, battery life of a mayfly or both. And the 4 was beautiful. Braun’s Jonny Ives’s finest hour.
 
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I think someone needs to create a skin (or something) that mimics the original icons and colour palettes especially for notes, safari, itunes etc
 
bigjnyc said:
I found an old iphone 5S in one of my drawers the other day... And holding it in my hand I wondered how the heck I did anything on that tiny little screen... Seems useless to have that size now.
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I remember reading this back in 2010: https://www.gsmarena.com/dell_streak-review-531.php
A 5 inch screen!! 5 inches!! Is it a phone or a tablet or what? Too big to be a phone concluded the reviewer :D

By 2013 though it was getting ridiculous. The Galaxy S3 was out and making the iPhone screen look tiny. I remember going into Carphone Warehouse at the time and seeing everyone crowding round the Android shelves while iPhone display section with the teeny 5S was deserted. Thankfully Apple saw sense and Jobs's "3.5 inches is all you need" mantra was ignored. I've often wondered how he'd have handled the iPhone sizing had he lived longer.
 
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I'm not so sure you can say these items were "missing." Sure in hindsight we can look back and make the first iPhone lacking. But I remember pre-ordering the first amidst all the teasing and jokes thrown my way by fellow developers (similar to when we started developing for the web!) When I turned it on for the first time it was pure magic. No other phone could compare. The Jeep I bought 10 years ago pales in comparison to the one I bought this week, but I'm not going to look back and say the last was lacking anything that took time to perfect. Now I am a manager over a the mobile team of a fairly large company. Occasionally I'll snap a photo across a restaurant, where all patrons have their heads buried in their phones, kids playing games, waiters sneaking to a corner to return text messages, etc. I'll send that photo to my old dev friends who called me crazy. I get the same reply every time "I KNOW I KNOW!!!!"
 
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azentropy said:
I'm one of those who thought the iPod wouldn't be a hit. I was of course wrong, but ended up being kinda correct in the long run
Click to expand...

kinda correct in the long run? You mean after they peaked in sales at $9.8 BILLION with a B per quarter? That failure lol? Just because Apple eventually replaced the iPod's functionality with the iPhone doesn't qualify the iPod as a failure. Arguably it saved Apple's derriere and contributed to the design of one of the largest product successes ever, the iPhone.

Sorry to nitpick, hey, if it makes you feel better I thought the Newton was going to succeed! And I like the HomePod. And AirPod Max. Heck I liked the first iPhone even! but yeah, I was one of those that had the original iPod too.
 
darngooddesign said:
To be fair, it was a two trick pony. Playing music and Firewire harddrive.
Click to expand...

Yep, the hard drive no doubt contributed to the success, but I would also say it's a three trick pony, if one considers the revolutionary interface as a trick. To actually see and be able to select (easily) your music... much better than what existed at the time (though eventually the iPod shuffle was a lot like what had previously existed lol)
 
klasma said:
The first item is why my first iPhone was the 3GS. It was indeed hard to believe.
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And even harder to believe that iPhone had it before Android. My first was an iPhone 4, so I had no idea; but I was flabbergasted that my buddy's Motorola Droid did not have copy/paste.
 
Kar98 said:
Well back then iPHONE WAS a joke. My $100 Windows phone did everything the iPhone didn’t then, and more.
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You've got some rose-colored glasses there. Windows phone in 2007 was an abysmal experience. Still felt neat, because computer in my pocket, but still sucked BIG TIME; and not just in retrospect, it was janky and awful even back then.
 
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I think people forget at the time very few phones support EVDO on CDMA and HSDPA on GSM until around 2010. Apple waited until the radio modem chipset used low enough power to support EVDO/HSDPA. In fact, Apple was criticized for not supporting 3GPP NR LTE until the iPhone 5, but given the bad battery experience with the HTC Thunderbolt phone, it ended up being a smart move.
 
klasma said:
I had been using a Palm Pilot since around 2000, so the lack of certain features on the early iPhones was bewildering.
Click to expand...
I recall that decision being defended by an Apple fanboi friend of mine. "Why would you ever need copy and paste on a phone?!"

I still think the way it's implemented in iOS sucks big logs though ;)
 
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