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Original iPhone's First Four Reviewers Reminisce About Getting Their Hands on It for the First Time

I remember excitement and then disappointment. No 3G, no MMS, photo quality was poor, not even in the same league as the Sony Ericsson phone I was using. For me, the release of the first one iPhone was a glimpse of what was coming, but that initial release was very underwhelming.
 
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BigDO said:
I remember getting one shortly after launch, and trying to convince myself to use it over my workhorse Nokia 71. It was painfully slow compared to it, couldn't send MMS, camera was much worse, and I couldn't save/edit any attachments.

Yet it was somehow incredibly cool to touch and use, especially pinching to zoom and scrolling. It just kept getting better and better, and finally when the 3GS came out it was undoubtedly the phone to use.
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We will, and it will come from Tesla.
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Not Tesla but yes, from Elon Musk. I think right now Spacex is the most important technology humans are developing.
 
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lsutigerfan1976 said:
3.5 inch display, edge technology, no gps driving directions, 2 megapixel camera, no copy and paste, no App Store. And it was revolutionary!

Shows you how spoiled we have have become that we complain about little things about the current models.
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That's nice this article's about the nostalgia of the original iPhone, but when it was featured with 2G cellular data and web apps, plus the original price point I was turned off. I knew they'd get it right, but it definitely wasn't the first time around.

The iPhone 3G was the true revolutionary step for me. It was my first iPhone, the first one I felt was worth waiting in line for. The original set the stage, but the 3G is what opened up Apple to the masses.
 
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My daughter kept trying to get me to buy a Blackberry when I was in the market for a phone. She showed me a chart of all the features the Blackberry had compared to the first iPhone which were many. But the one big difference to me was the iPhone had a much bigger screen. So I bought the iPhone much to her disapproval. The next year a new iPhone came out and she dumped her Blackberry and bought an iPhone. :)
 
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dannyyankou said:
Back in the days when people got excited over a 2 megapixel camera, haha. Amazing how far we’ve come.
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Just as Terabytes were Gigabytes and Gigabytes were Megabytes.

We all have such short memories. It was not that long ago that a PC with 512mb RAM and a 20GB 5400rpm Hard Drive was deemed more than acceptable.
 
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The first iPhone was more of an iPod touch with some mobilephone functionality. But since i was already carrying a phone and iPod around with me, that was enough to convince me.

But Jailbreaking was definitely a must for a few years, just to get some basic functions every "normal" phone had at that time.
 
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Mr Fusion said:
That's nice this article's about the nostalgia of the original iPhone, but when it was featured with 2G cellular data and web apps, plus the original price point I was turned off. I knew they'd get it right, but it definitely wasn't the first time around.

The iPhone 3G was the true revolutionary step for me. It was my first iPhone, the first one I felt was worth waiting in line for. The original set the stage, but the 3G is what opened up Apple to the masses.
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I’d say the 3GS. With the additional speed and video capability, also the App Store had a year to mature. Oh and cut copy and paste. I’d go one step further and say the 4, which inctroduced the front facing now “selfie” camera (for better or worse) with FaceTime, and iMessage that truly sealed their popularity.
 
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I bought the first Iphone..nothing else on the market had its ease of use
and feature set. The 3gs Iphone was a big leap but that first phone broke things wide open.
 
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I was joined at the hip with my aging Sony Clie and the smallest single purpose (voice) clamshell phone I could lay my hands on. thought the iPhone was way too pricey. lost my resolve with the 3g and have been upgrading at a conservative 3 year interval ever since. just found my old 3g laying in a drawer ...amazing to compare it with my current 7
 
Seen a few comments joking about the 2 megapixel camera and the sub 3G speed. What were competitors putting out on devices at the same time? I had a flip phone, and it did have internet capability and a small screen but I honestly don't remember the specs for it at all. No camera, and you had to use the 10 key phone-pad as the keyboard.
 
Such a brilliant phone and the iPhone is still easily the best smartphone in my opinion. Waiting to see the iPhone 8 later this year :)
 
3G was already standard for any decent phone. That's why it's absence on the first iPhone was so surprising. In fact it lacked many feature considered standard.


EdT said:
Seen a few comments joking about the 2 megapixel camera and the sub 3G speed. What were competitors putting out on devices at the same time? I had a flip phone, and it did have internet capability and a small screen but I honestly don't remember the specs for it at all. No camera, and you had to use the 10 key phone-pad as the keyboard.
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Superhappytree said:
I’d say the 3GS. With the additional speed and video capability, also the App Store had a year to mature. Oh and cut copy and paste. I’d go one step further and say the 4, which inctroduced the front facing now “selfie” camera (for better or worse) with FaceTime, and iMessage that truly sealed their popularity.
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Yeah the 4 is still my favorite. I begrudgingly bought a 5S to replace it, and I have my fingers crossed the 8 can hold up to the standard set by the 4.
 
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My first experience with iPhone was in the fall of 2007. I was in a supermarket and I saw this lady walking through the aisles with something in her hand. Two thoughts came to mind: 1. its a knock off, 2. it might be the real deal. Considering the iPhone was said to be locked to AT&T it was surprising to see someone using it out here in Jamaica. We met up at the check out and built up enough confidence to ask her if thats an iPhone. She said yes, and I ask if I could check it out.

It was a bit overwhelming at first, but I eventually calmed down. The screen had a crack and it had the black background. I didn't want to open apps because she might find that intrusive. I guess I lived with that experience for quite a while. My first iOS device was my iPod Touch (3rd gen). Over the years, my brother would own various models, starting with the 3G, 3GS, 4S and he currently uses iPhone 5. He is not interested in upgrading because he has other priorities like building his first home and other living expenses.

I bought my first iPhone, a 6s in 2015 and I can't put it down, its with me where ever I go. I use it as a 3G modem, send and receive calls, constantly on social media, take pictures, record video. Love it!

I don't know if I will be upgrading to the next generation, but the Plus size is tempting, but I probably would substitute wanting a larger device by going with the iPad Pro 12.9 with cellular. I would then wait until 2019 to upgrade to the 7s Plus at a cheaper price or get the 8s.

Here is to iPhone, the device that started it all, turned the industry upside down, started new economies and made the world an even more connected and mobile place. Steve Jobs played a critical role in making it happen, but the larger team of developers, engineers, designers really put the work in and I want to thank them for the sacrifices they made, both personal and professional.
 
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I owned the first iPhone and the 3G... but the 3Gs was the first time they really crossed over from potential to a fully realized product.

The processor of the 3Gs unlocked the capabilities off the app store, nothing felt sluggish any more (which was a real problem on the 3G even at launch), and it set the tick-tock cadence that Apple has been following ever since for releases.

That said, I laughed at the first iPhone up until the point I actually got to use one, at which point my windows mobile devices felt obsolete. I wanted to be on the bandwagon, even if it was lacking features all my other devices had.
 
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Back then I was doing events for Sony Ericsson, I was telling the people at Sony about the iPhone and they were ignoring me. They had like 7 different models, one targeted to "internet", another more towards music, another for camera... all of them phones but very clunky. They didn't want to see the future.
 
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Mr Fusion said:
Yeah the 4 is still my favorite. I begrudgingly bought a 5S to replace it, and I have my fingers crossed the 8 can hold up to the standard set by the 4.
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The 4 was amazing. Even in the keynote, when Steve talked about "once you hold one" (or something like that) - he was SO right ... even today, it feels so solid in hand. After owning the 4 and 4S, having anything other than glass on the back just didn't feel right, or nearly as premium.
 
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My first iPhone was the iPhone 4 since I had Verizon and didn't want to switch to AT&T (since iPhone was exclusively AT&T for a few generations.)

I had the Android 1 I remember with the sliding screen and thought it was the bee's knees. Forced myself to like it since I couldn't get the iPhone. I then switched to the Blackberry Storm which was an utter disappointment.

Then the iphone 4 came out and I got that...my oh my. Game changer.
 
I don't want to Rain on the Parade. The Birthday of the iPhone was on the 9th of January 2007. It took a few Months before the Public would be allowed to own one that would be what you are referring to but then you could also take the 5th of September when Steve decided the Baby was to small and they would be dropping the 4 GB for a 8 GB. It took another 2 Months before we were officially able to get them in Europe. I had a few Friend that Flew to the US and through the sale of iPhones on there Return financed the whole tip Flight, Stay and all the extras. Gold Rush times.
 
macfacts said:
A lot of people that got the first iPhone never had a smartphone before, they never had palm os phones or Nokia phones back then. Of course they are amazed.
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Yep, the Americans were fed a steady diet of crap clamshells by the carriers. People who used devices such as Treo and Nokia smartphones weren't that amazed by the original iPhone, quite contrary in fact. But it did have the revolutionary UI and a first capacitative touchscreen which really made it pop.
 
dr34mc4st3r said:
i remember refusing to give in to the hype, and continued using my windows mobile phone. the turning point came when i could not load a webpage properly while a friend's iPhone 2g loaded it with grace
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Lol, what a load of BS, no 2g website has ever loaded with grace unless it was the Google home page with 98% white screen... stop remembering what you think it was like. In reality, the pinch and zoom was the killer feature. That was awesome. Everything else was existing or interior tech. Nokia were killing it camera wise. The screen was so low.res it was laffable, features were literally a fraction more than dumb phones. So yes it was thr catalyst for a paradyme shift, but it took till the ip4 to actually be really any good...
 
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