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Seven Years Ago Today, Steve Jobs Introduced the iPhone

KPOM said:
No. I take issue with your lists.

First, not everything you list was an "innovation." OS X was a badly needed catch-up. Windows had long had pre-emptive multi-tasking, a more stable kernel, and advanced memory management. It was significant for the Mac, but I don't think Microsoft changed any of its plans related to Windows based on what Apple did with OS X.

iMac wasn't the first all-in-one. It resurrected Apple's fortunes in the PC market, but it didn't create a new category. If you include that, then logically you should include the 2010 MacBook Air and 2013 Mac Pro. Both weren't "new" categories but radically changed expectations.

I'd consider iPod and iTunes to be the hardware and software sides of the same innovation.

Second, since 2007, we've seen the iPod, which was a brand new category. It wasn't just a "big iPod Touch," though it uses the same operating system. As noted above, I'd also include the MacBook Air. Whether that's a 2008 or 1 2010 innovation is subject to some interpretation. 2008 was more of a proof of concept. 2010 is what led to the modern "Ultrabook."
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Correct. I was being generous.

They revolutionized/reinvented:

The desktop

Music and Movies

Mobile devices including phones​

They did this with unbelievably brilliant inventions that were revealed between 1998 and 2007.

Since 2007 they have not revealed another category-changing technology.
 
Dirtfarmer said:
I really hope that their wristwatch or their TV blow us all away the way that the iPod did. But as of now, those are vapour.
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Apple announced a TV and a watch?

Really?

I must have missed that.
 
I watch parts of this a few times each year. It reminds me of how utterly lousy smartphones were before iPhone. I owned a Motorola Q. It was dog-slow, cumbersome, and unreliable. Steve changed the game, in a way that directly benefits me every single day.
 
I hated pretty much all smartphones before the iPhone reinvented the market. I owned a palm one from original launch. I would have much rather used a stylus and graffiti.

To me , hardware keyboards on phones were a massive fail. When I saw the presentation I knew things would change. One of the few technology items of any kind to get me excited as an adult. I did not own any apple products at the time and used a tiny rio player to listen to music. I never bought into the iPod hype. Yet this I bought from the get go.

People were laughing and saying that it would suck without a hardware keyboard, yet all I knew was those people were suckers for having spent part of their life typing on tiny hamster keys.

The introduction of the Internet to the public is far and away the biggest technological advancement of the last twenty years. The introduction of the iPhone was the first significant game changer to how, where and why people used the Internet. Sure people will talk about similar previous devices or try to downplay the significance of it, but all those protestations ring completely hollow. Some here will continue to claim the smartphone market existed before the iPhone but if people want to consider those previous phones smart in anything more than name only, I hate to see what they consider dumb.

The iPhone introduction to the public was certainly one of the two or three biggest device based advancements since computers became more than just mainframes. Without it the whole world would be very different for a lot of people. We would have eventually reached parallel destinations but it would have likely been in different ways with much different impacts. One could speculate on which were good and which were bad, but I think everyone who gets to benefit from the mobile computing world on a daily basis, in 2014, the do owe Apple a tip of the cap for this game changing device.
 
GLS said:
Apple announced a TV and a watch?

Really?

I must have missed that.
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You must have missed the small hints Apple have dropped. You know, stuff like 'wrist wearables are extremely interesting to us', or Steve saying 'we've nailed the TV'.

They are working on a wristwatch and a TV, that's unquestionable.
 
Dirtfarmer said:
Not saying (at all) that other companies *are* changing things.
.

I really hope that their wristwatch or their TV blow us all away the way that the iPod did. But as of now, those are vapour.
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The iPhone and pad were things I was waiting for, the TV is already here but being constrained by scared media empires. The watch thing (that everyone but apple is blathering about), I just don't get, unless its a decoy to get the others to spend billions pushing out useless crap.
 
keysofanxiety said:
You must have missed the small hints Apple have dropped. You know, stuff like 'wrist wearables are extremely interesting to us', or Steve saying 'we've nailed the TV'.

They are working on a wristwatch and a TV, that's unquestionable.
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For all we know, they are also working on a line of kitchen appliances, too.

Apple *may* be working on those things. But your or I or every friggin analyst and techno site really do not have a clue.

And I stand by that. The person I quoted called them vaporware. Since nothing has been announced by Apple, then that statement is incorrect.
 
Phones were horrible around that time but we made due.

Best keynote, the next few years were fun to use Apple products :)
 
GLS said:
For all we know, they are also working on a line of kitchen appliances, too.

Apple *may* be working on those things. But your or I or every friggin analyst and techno site really do not have a clue.

And I stand by that. The person I quoted called them vaporware. Since nothing has been announced by Apple, then that statement is incorrect.
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I'd normally agree with you, but Apple have said it themselves. Unless it's an elaborate ruse for whatever reason.

These aren't mere rumours pulled from the air. Give it a year and they're going to revolutionise another category.
 
MMANN113 said:
Will always be the best keynote. It's a phone! It's an iPod! It's a web device!

Ahh life before the iPhone. It's was a primitive time.
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You bet. Can you imagine the fear and panic at the other boardrooms 7 years ago. Talk about headless chickens and soiled underwear. They had to wait another six months before before they could buy one to pull apart and try to copy. Almost too cruel.

Good times.
 
Happy birthday iPhone. I watched this presentation then, and several times after that. We don't miss smartphones, but - damn - do we miss Steve.
 
Dirtfarmer said:
The iPad is a configuration of the iPhone.

The iPhone was a game changer. Like the iMac. Like the Macintosh. Since 2007, though, crickets. Just riffs on existing products, feature adds, revisions, refinements.

They no longer change the game; they just compete into existing markets with an aging product matrix.
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How often do you expect a single company to completely revolutionize and reinvent an existing market? You seem to have some unobtainable expectations. Nobody else has come close to a similar single advancement/disruption that is even close, and over a much greater period of time than seven years.
 
Long time lurker, first time poster here.

I was a little late to the iPhone party myself; I first found out about iPhone about 6 months after release date (my head was definitely in the sand, good old college), and the first exposure I had to it was this presentation. I didn't manage to afford one until about September of 2008, a couple of months after the release of the iPhone 3G and well after this announcement.

To this day, it still sends chills through me when Jobs says "The second: is a revolutionary mobile phone," and the crowd erupts into a roar.

I remember even that far after the release date, people didn't really have iPhones; they were sort of an exclusive item, being so expensive and only on AT&T. I'll never forget the first, oh, I don't know...6-7 months of owning my first one, the original. I would have strangers come up to me on campus and be like "oh my god, is that an iPhone?" It's not much, but that was cool.

I remember my first night of having one. I stayed up until 6am just playing with the phone, the "apps." That was really cool, too.

I've owned every iteration since. Yeah, maybe there are some better features on Samsung, HTC, whatever devices. First off, I'm not picky, and I don't need a ton of features. Second, it just feels good to relive that "first time" of having one, once every year. It's not as momentous, but it is nice to throw-back to old times every once in a while.

Edit: and to add to this: I still have a black background, a la iPhone OS 1-3. Never had a background, never will. Even Apple geniuses have made fun of me for this the few times I've swapped one out.
 
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apfelmann said:
Edison was not the good person many think he was

the oatmeal "TESLA vs EDISON"
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/tesla http://theoatmeal.com/comics/tesla
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Honestly, I wouldn't call Steve Jobs either. He wasn't skating the mad edge of genius and creativity like Tesla was, and wasn't nearly as big of an ass as Edison.

Apple as a whole are the perfecters of other pioneers innovations. They take a great idea in the raw, cook it, then give it a spit shine polish. They're the ergonomic designers of the industry.

Steve Job's talent wasn't creating brand new ideas. He wasn't an inventor. His talent lied in knowing what ideas were worth pursuing.
 
Dirtfarmer said:
1998-2007 products that revolutionized the segment that they were in:

iMac
OSX
iTunes
iPod
iPhone

2007-2014 products that revolutionized the segment that they were in:




See what I mean?
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You are misusing the word "revolutionized" and applying it to some things that did not revolutionize and purposefully leaving off things that did. You put iMac but not the iPad?
 
neilmacd said:
Ah, back when Apple and Google were best buddies...

Could you ever imagine Tim Cook introducing Larry Page during the iPhone 6 announcement?
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Introducing him to the tip of a sword or the FBI for industrial espionage. Bitter, moi, never. Waits for googlers to claim it was apple that copied copied Linux and stole java....
 
waronxmas said:
Apple I (This was a groundbreaking device as it was the first personal computer that the public could actually use.- released 1977
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The Apple I board was not a ready to go personal computer. It still required the owner to find and put together other parts to make it work.

As an aside, it's interesting to note that the early Apple computers could only display upper case characters. Decades later, the iOS keyboard still has only upper case on its keys. (It doesn't shift to lowercase to let you know the mode it's in, like every other soft keyboard on the planet.)

natd1993 said:
Best product introduction of all time. Bar none. Steve Jobs was the Thomas Edison of our generation.
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Yes, it was a great dog and pony show.

However, Edison actually invented, or knew how to, everything he took credit for. Jobs never engineered a circuit nor programmed a line of code in his life. He didn't know how.

Jobs was a user with the power to pay others to design and build things that he liked. He was also a gifted speaker and salesman.

I think his lack of technical knowledge was key to Apple's success, because he did not know when something was "too hard to do". I've always said that Apple should hire a replacement like him, and give the replacement the same ultimate decision power.
 
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