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

[Nicksd84]

Stil with all the advanced features it was a better and simpler phone and texting vehicle than everything else. Those two tasks were an utter pain and for the average consumer the barrier was too high. One reason I stay with iPhones is I can interface with my parents on a more predictable basis than was possible with the other smartphones out there.
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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...

Right but they could get away with it because the interfaces were so atrocious elsewhere. It was worth the tradeoff. And while you might laugh webpages loaded with grace even if slowly whereas faster phones would load them and you couldn't do anything with them.

 

[discuit]

But Jailbreaking was definitely a must for a few years, just to get some basic functions every "normal" phone had at that time.

Control center customization is finally arriving now in iOS 11- a feature jailbreakers have had since 2008 using BossPrefs/SBSettings. The control center itself only arrived in iOS 7 in 2013.

 

[user7c]

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

WOW. I just can't picture a windows phone from that time. What was the model name so I can look it up. Please

 

[BornAgainMac]

I remember when I first got the iPhone that I was afraid to show it in public. I felt like the human race wasn't ready for tech that advanced yet and they would just ask me questions about it.

 

[PsykX]

ok, who here likes the original interface as opposed to iOS 7+ more?

Photorealism, as referenced to by Scott Forstall instead of skeuomorphism, is indeed way better than Elements that look like things in real life make us feel at home, and are way more intuitive, even for old people, instead of alienating us through an interface that is purely based on virtual concepts.

 

[Jsameds]

"how they do a little bounce when you get to the end."

I remember that as I got my first iPhone in 2008 and I immediately felt in love.

Around 1993 I had a similar moment with the Mac.

When you wanted to delete stuff you put it in the Wastebasket - sounds silly but that was a brilliant new feature back then.

And then came the kicker - when you put things in it, it got fatter! Genius.

Sounds laughable in 2017 but a quarter century ago they were super impressive.

 

[BornAgainMac]

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...

Technically, if you were connected to a 802.11b wireless network, it would load web pages fast. They never said it was over 2G network.

 

[discuit]

I see no one is fondly reminiscing about the huge initial price (unsubsidized, but still carrier locked to AT&T), then the price drop, then the outrage campaign resulting in credits.

 

[Mefisto]

It just dawned on me that I haven't watched the whole iPhone-keynote from 10 years ago. I mean I've missed a couple along the way, my first iPhone was the 4S and that's what sparked my interest, but I have no idea why I haven't gotten around to watching the first one.

Guess that's what's on the docket later tonight.

 

[admob71]

Stil with all the advanced features it was a better and simpler phone and texting vehicle than everything else. Those two tasks were an utter pain and for the average consumer the barrier was too high. One reason I stay with iPhones is I can interface with my parents on a more predictable basis than was possible with the other smartphones out there.
[doublepost=1498414599][/doublepost]

Right but they could get away with it because the interfaces were so atrocious elsewhere. It was worth the tradeoff. And while you might laugh webpages loaded with grace even if slowly whereas faster phones would load them and you couldn't do anything with them.

2 points, firstly, you are still,looking back through rose tinted glasses. What advanced features? As mentioned previously on here, it was severely lacking the feature set of many a phone of 2007, the camera was useless, the Web speed was useless, no app store. Jeez you couldn't even change the wallpaper ffs. It was pinch and zoom and nothing else that blew people away. And let's be honest about this, they didnt invent pinch and zoom, prior patents already covered this. They were just the first to use the tech on a marketable product. It was a lovely packaged but hugely undercooked device.
Secondly, the debate wasn't about what you did with a Web page after it loaded, just this mythical claim that it loaded faster than alternative 3g handsets whilst only rocking snail pace 2g Web connections. Talk about rewriting history..

 

[joueboy]

That was back then when iPhone was a revolutionary product and charging cable is durable. Apple has really come a long way and Tim all he cares is profit. Good for Apple.

 

[DotCom2]

2 points, firstly, you are still,looking back through rose tinted glasses. What advanced features? As mentioned previously on here, it was severely lacking the feature set of many a phone of 2007, the camera was useless, the Web speed was useless, no app store. Jeez you couldn't even change the wallpaper ffs. It was pinch and zoom and nothing else that blew people away. And let's be honest about this, they didnt invent pinch and zoom, prior patents already covered this. They were just the first to use the tech on a marketable product. It was a lovely packaged but hugely undercooked device.
Secondly, the debate wasn't about what you did with a Web page after it loaded, just this mythical claim that it loaded faster than alternative 3g handsets whilst only rocking snail pace 2g Web connections. Talk about rewriting history..

Ahhhh but that SCREEN! Won me over!

 

[Phil A.]

For me, I could look past the lack of features such as no cut and paste, no MMS, no video calling and no 3G (although I was disappointed they didn't have proper custom apps and never bought into the claim that Web Apps were the future) because of the email client and built in iPod - they were the killer features for me and changed the way I used my phone (I had previously used various Windows CE and Symbian phones)

 

[RamGuy]

2 points, firstly, you are still,looking back through rose tinted glasses. What advanced features? As mentioned previously on here, it was severely lacking the feature set of many a phone of 2007, the camera was useless, the Web speed was useless, no app store. Jeez you couldn't even change the wallpaper ffs. It was pinch and zoom and nothing else that blew people away. And let's be honest about this, they didnt invent pinch and zoom, prior patents already covered this. They were just the first to use the tech on a marketable product. It was a lovely packaged but hugely undercooked device.
Secondly, the debate wasn't about what you did with a Web page after it loaded, just this mythical claim that it loaded faster than alternative 3g handsets whilst only rocking snail pace 2g Web connections. Talk about rewriting history..

I had the Nokia N95 at the time, which was one of the "premier" phones at the time of the original iPhone release. And the thing is, even though I never bought a iPhone myself until iPhone 3GS the original iPhone blew my Nokia N95 out of the water in pretty much every erea.

Sure, I had "3,5G" mobile connection. So what? At the time you paid ********s for data so it was never used for anything so I was only using it on WiFi and the speed didn't really matter as the web browser and the entire browsing experience was horrible. I also used a Q-Tek (which later became HTC) Windows Mobile phone at work and it was the same story there. You never used 3G-Networks for anything meaningful because the price of doing so was through the roof. And browsing on WiFi was not something you did because the UX-design and user experience was horrible.

I don't recall the exact model numbers of the Q-Tek phone I used at the time, but both that and my Nokia N95 was top-of-the-line phone for the time just when the original iPhone got released and the iPhone completely destroyed them both by simply offering a UX-design and a user experience that was way above and beyond what Nokia (Symbian) and Q-Tek (Windows Mobile) had to offer at the time.

Safari on the original iPhone was actually usable. Yeah, loading was slow but so was it on all the other models but Safari could at least show you something half-decent compared to the others. Same goes for e-mail. The e-mail client in Symbian and the one in Windows Mobile was horrible. You mostly used it just to get notified, and then you had to grab your notebook to actually read and reply to the mail. On the original iPhone you could do so directly on the phone without feeling completely out of place.

Not to mention how much better the original iPhone was in terms of handling it's own hardware. The Nokia N95 and the Q-Tek would prompt you with "low memory" message all the time if you were crazy enough to actually use applications on the phone. Making it so you couldn't even open newly received SMS without doing a reboot of the damn phone..

And complaining about the camera is just pointless. All phones had horrible cameras at the time, especially "smart phones". Sony Ericsson had a few models with what was described at "good cellphone cameras" at the time but even those took horrible pictures. There was a reason for pretty much every one owning dedicated digital cameras at the time.

Not to mention the built-in "iPod", it was way better compared to anything from the competition.

 

[sudo1996]

Me not having an iPhone was half the reason I wasn't cool in middle/high school.

 

[admob71]

I had the Nokia N95 at the time, which was one of the "premier" phones at the time of the original iPhone release. And the thing is, even though I never bought a iPhone myself until iPhone 3GS the original iPhone blew my Nokia N95 out of the water in pretty much every erea.

Sure, I had "3,5G" mobile connection. So what? At the time you paid ********s for data so it was never used for anything so I was only using it on WiFi and the speed didn't really matter as the web browser and the entire browsing experience was horrible. I also used a Q-Tek (which later became HTC) Windows Mobile phone at work and it was the same story there. You never used 3G-Networks for anything meaningful because the price of doing so was through the roof. And browsing on WiFi was not something you did because the UX-design and user experience was horrible.

I don't recall the exact model numbers of the Q-Tek phone I used at the time, but both that and my Nokia N95 was top-of-the-line phone for the time just when the original iPhone got released and the iPhone completely destroyed them both by simply offering a UX-design and a user experience that was way above and beyond what Nokia (Symbian) and Q-Tek (Windows Mobile) had to offer at the time.

Safari on the original iPhone was actually usable. Yeah, loading was slow but so was it on all the other models but Safari could at least show you something half-decent compared to the others. Same goes for e-mail. The e-mail client in Symbian and the one in Windows Mobile was horrible. You mostly used it just to get notified, and then you had to grab your notebook to actually read and reply to the mail. On the original iPhone you could do so directly on the phone without feeling completely out of place.

Not to mention how much better the original iPhone was in terms of handling it's own hardware. The Nokia N95 and the Q-Tek would prompt you with "low memory" message all the time if you were crazy enough to actually use applications on the phone. Making it so you couldn't even open newly received SMS without doing a reboot of the damn phone..

And complaining about the camera is just pointless. All phones had horrible cameras at the time, especially "smart phones". Sony Ericsson had a few models with what was described at "good cellphone cameras" at the time but even those took horrible pictures. There was a reason for pretty much every one owning dedicated digital cameras at the time.

Not to mention the built-in "iPod", it was way better compared to anything from the competition.

I also had a n95 around that time, I have to disagree, the Carl zeiss optics took camera photography to a next level compared to most of the dross out there.

 

[JungeQuex]

>you will never use an iPhone for the first time ever again

Feels bad man.

 

[kazmac]

Very interesting.

I was already a loyal Mac user then (at least 11 years), but I resisted the siren song of the iPhone until the 3GS. The iPhone feels like it's been around for more than a decade though which I think is kind of cool. They've become that entrenched in society and our daily lives.

I am very happy to have one that works beautifully so I can just enjoy and not think about it.

 

[Paco II]

Agreed. I am sure it is unintentional, but there is some revisionist history happening. Nokia, Sony Ericsson, etc, had phone cameras at the time that took photos far superior to those of the original iPhone. In fact, I think it wasn't until the 3GS or maybe even the 4 that iPhone photos had finally caught up.

I also had a n95 around that time, I have to disagree, the Carl zeiss optics took camera photography to a next level compared to most of the dross out there.

 

[Firelock]

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.

I remember when I was in college and took out a small $600 loan from my credit union to buy my first 20 MB hard drive. I had to explain to the loan officer what it did. I said, "Imagine what you can store on 20 floppy disks, that is what you can put on this device!" She said, "Oh, yes, I can see how useful that would be." and approved the loan.

 

[blueflame]

I remember being there. I had a press pass. Was doing a macworld promo as it was one of the last.

Had to be in the hall at 3am backstage.

I could literally feel the tention. There was large food tables set up behind the the stage in a large loading area. Filled with breakfast coffee and juice.

About 5am, steve jobs came in witn phil schiller and john mayer. I didnt really know who mayer was at the time. I am not really musical.

All three sat at a table and shook hands.'talking. Not one of them took a drink or ate.

They were so focused. You could tell this was a big moment.

When by 6am. Long lines outside the center to get in. Tons of journalist. It was so special being back there. Before anyone else was let in for hours. Feeling it. Seeing the setup. EMpty display tables and a empty glass case.

I watched the keynote from the left side of the stage. Watched the reveal in awe.

Even being here that early, i never saw the phone until after the presentstion. Then led out to all the glass encased displays. You could tell. Even unfinished. This was a change in tech.

Really feel lucky to have been there for the reveal. This shifted communication for the rest of history.

Lookingn back it feels like inwas there for thr launch of the first manned mission to the moon.

 

[Applebot1]

I remember buying the original iPhone 8GB from the Manchester Trafford Centre Apple Store.
Wow it was amazing and everyone were amazed by it too. Great device and the way SJ presented it in his keynote presentation was electrifying...Apple at their best.

 

[Jim Lahey]

I still have mine and I still tend to the battery. Keeping it charged every week or so in airplane mode. It did change the world, and in my opinion anyone who says it didn't is in denial.

 

[Paco II]

No question it changed the course of phones. But in terms of that first model, it was just 'ok'. The touchscreen was amazing and revolutionary, but it required too many sacrifices (no 3G, poor photo quality, no MMS, limited Bluetooth capability, whatever battery life, etc). Thankfully it improved greatly from that first model

I still have mine and I still tend to the battery. Keeping it charged every week or so in airplane mode. It did change the world, and in my opinion anyone who says it didn't is in denial.

 

[pdaholic]

I rode the Windows Mobile horse until it broke a leg and had to be put out of its misery. I couldn't stand typing on the iPhone compared to typing on my physical WM keyboards, but I eventually adapted. I couldn't even read a PDF on the first few generations of iPhone, which made me think it was a worthless, limited device. Amazing how far tech has come in the last 10 years.