Seven Years Ago Today, Steve Jobs Introduced the iPhone

[FirstNTenderbit]

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.

+1. I completely agree with sentiment that his lack of technical knowledge was one of his greatest strengths. He wasn't encumbered by the minutiae. He also motivated his troops to get his vision done. I have no commentary on how he motivated because I've heard both positive and negative things; neither of which I know to be true... or false.

 

[Flood123]

So is this the anniversary of the day social skills died(since everyone is always on their damn phones)?

 

[dojoman]

"Who wants a stylus?" Samsung does. lol

 

[Smaugg]

There was a very interesting article published into too long ago that covered this presentation. It spoke about the unstable iPhone OS software that was so bad when being tested prior to the keynote it was crashing every few minutes or so. Everyone behind the scenes at Apple held their breath for that keynote, crossing their fingers, praying that it wouldn't crash, because they just knew it was inevitable.

Somehow, it went off without a hitch. So, so lucky. The gods were on their side that day.

RIP Steve. We miss you.

I read an article along those lines as well. Maybe it was the same one. From what I read they did a lot of testing and worked out very precisely a series of steps to demo the iPhone that wouldn't crash the device, and then stuck strictly to it.

I would be inclined to ascribe the success of the presentation to hard work and impeccable preparation rather than divine intervention ;-)

 

[iBug2]

True, ten years ago people actually talked to each other at dinner, and watched the movie in a theater.

Now it's like one of those Twilight Zone episodes, where if the 'net went down, people wouldn't know what to do or think

Nobody said the change was supposed to be positive or negative. iPhone just changed how we live. Yes it had a lot of annoying side effects on our lives as well.

 

[krravi]

I remember watching it Live on the PC at work in my previous job! We came out for break and were going back and forth about the new device while checking emails on our samsung blackjack! And then one of the colleagues got the first iPhone and we were all mesmerized by it!

 

[iBug2]

+1. I completely agree with sentiment that his lack of technical knowledge was one of his greatest strengths. He wasn't encumbered by the minutiae. He also motivated his troops to get his vision done. I have no commentary on how he motivated because I've heard both positive and negative things; neither of which I know to be true... or false.

This is certainly true. I don't know how many times he asked people for something everyone thought was "impossible" to do, like installing a small and quiet PSU into Apple II.

 

[iBug2]

I really and honestly don't understand all this frenesi around iPhone. It's maybe the first good looking, usable touchscreen phone, but that's it. I'm a computer user, so at that time I was more impressed with N95's features...

So you are a computer user, and the rest of us are? Hmmm, washing machine fanatics?

 

[datsuncaptain1]

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.

Maybe he knew what the ordinary consumer wanted because he wasn't hung up on "muh code, muh graphics, muh BS," he asked for a user experience that ANYONE could use, instead of some neckbeard loser sitting at a desktop punching code.

>Jobs was a user with the power to pay others to design and build things that he liked.

Great job, you've just figured out marketing in the tech industry. Jobs didn't know crap for code, but he partnered with those who did.

 

[Macyourdayy]

Edit

 

[iBug2]

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.

That only says that to invent an iPhone you don't have to program a line of code or design a circuit board.

Jobs invented the iPhone together with the rest of the team. He wasn't alone of course. Your comparison is very bad. Edison did invent stuff a single man could invent. He lived 150 years ago when people could actually singlehandedly do wonders. No single man can build an iPhone. It's a team effort. 150 years ago, people could actually prove theorems without using anyone else's techniques, because there wasn't much else to work with. Science was just "starting" to flourish. Today, you can't do anything without actually using someone else's code, or research, or circuit board. It's all a team effort because there's way too much work being done simultaneously all around the world, scientific or engineering. Millions of people coming up with great ideas every day, and they are working together. We will never have another Edison. Even Einstein, regarded as the greatest genius of the 20th Century, did his biggest breakthrough using mathematical work his contemporaries carried out, like Hilbert.

 

[FirstNTenderbit]

Maybe he knew what the ordinary consumer wanted because he wasn't hung up on "muh code, muh graphics, muh BS," he asked for a user experience that ANYONE could use, instead of some neckbeard loser sitting at a desktop punching code.

>Jobs was a user with the power to pay others to design and build things that he liked.

Great job, you've just figured out marketing in the tech industry. Jobs didn't know crap for code, but he partnered with those who did.

You sort of just repeated everything kdarling said, just with bit more negativity. Those hurr durr neckbeards deserve just as much credit by the way. How easy do you think it could have been to bring Steve's vision to fruition? Look at what they did just to make the keynote work.

 

[Michael Scrip]

This is for the iPod not iPhone, but I visit it every once and a while to not let the haters get me down.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/apples-new-thing-ipod.500/

Wow! A blast from the past.

Here's a funny one... boy how times have changed:

Sounds very revolutionary to me.

hey - heres an idea Apple - rather than enter the world of gimmicks and toys, why dont you spend a little more time sorting out your pathetically expensive and crap server line up?

or are you really aiming to become a glorified consumer gimmicks firm?

 

[keigo]

there are always people that just want to diminish other people credit...

If apple never bring out the iPhone;

- we will all still be using nokia and typing sms using the number pad
- we will be surfing facebook on the desk and not on the go
- Everything we can do on mobile today will never happen
- 3g and 4g will take longer period to exists to the mass consumer since the demand is not huge
- We will still be paying huge amount of money to telco for sms,mms and roaming phone call
- A lot of companies will never have been created like whatsapp, instagram

Also not to mention it Apple who make it possible on the use of GUI and mouse there won't be Microsoft.

 

[Renzatic]

Maybe he knew what the ordinary consumer wanted because he wasn't hung up on "muh code, muh graphics, muh BS," he asked for a user experience that ANYONE could use, instead of some neckbeard loser sitting at a desktop punching code.

That's that point. He asked for it, but he didn't design it completely himself. He was the quality check guy at the end of the design process. Those neckbeards you're busy disparaging are the ones who got the work to him in the first place.

I give him credit for creating the environment that was responsible for producing the iPod, the iPhone, and the iPad, but I'm not gonna call him the inventor of any of those.

 

[NMBob]

I cleared out the last todo I had in the app Clear and an omen appeared:

"We're here to put a dent in the universe."
- Steve Jobs

 

[prowlmedia]

I always thought it was odd how he introduced the actual device picture...not the spinning cube, where they all laughed. or the iPod classic dialler...

at 7m00s

Shows some blackberrys. Chops of the keyboards and says what you want is

"A giant screen"

and...PLOP... there it is... sticks it up there and no one is the wiser... a few quiet whoops, probably from Ive.

 

[baryon]

I take my finger, and I scroll.

 

[malcolmffc]

A few observations:

Amazing to see how chummy Apple and Google were back then. Nowadays if Eric Schmidt showed up to an Apple keynote, he'd be thrown out by security

Apple shares on that day were $85. If only I'd bought a ton...

The iPhone Jobs was using looks very laggy and slow by today's standards, but it looked amazing then.

I miss the iPod app.

Amazon still had a VHS section in 2007!

The speech by the AT&T guy should be shown at every public speaking training course as a classic example of how NOT to do it

 

[Macyourdayy]

They had, but not on a mass production smartphone.



Yep, flick scrolling was cool even 15 years before the iPhone used it:

YouTube: video

Brilliant inventions, but luckily Steve or his team found them and knew what to do, unlike all those other geniuses still peddling crappy little keyboards, resistive (to touch) screens and disappearing styli.

 

[Kendo]

That's what I said: if touchscreen was mandatory for you, then iPhone was a paradigm shift.

What percentage of smartphones were touch screen before the iPhone came out? More important question, what percentage of smartphones out there are touch screen now? 99.99%?

That's great that you don't care for touch screen phones. But when their main competitor themselves stated "We're going to have to start over" with Android after viewing the iPhone intro, and the majority of smartphones out there are now touch screen, how is them releasing the first usable touchscreen phone not turning the entire world upside down?

http://appleinsider.com/articles/13...g-were-going-to-have-to-start-over-on-android

 

[FirstNTenderbit]

Not understanding is obvious from your post. You probably can't tell the difference between arial and times new roman or most likely never heard of them. You probably think a bucket of pale, slightly brownish sweet liquid is coffee and Chinese knock offs are are better than the originals. If you actually have a girlfriend, can you tell the difference between her and other women or is she a necessary nuisance?
Thank you for your honestly.
How did you manage to type frensi, because autocorrect wants to insert forensic.

I feel like an apologist today. Where's the courtesy in our forum? Frenesi is Spanish for frenzy. Why would attack a fellow poster so vehemently for rendering an opinion that was likely shared by a lot of people outside of the US during that time. Back then, Nokia was the beast. We all have our opinions and have a right to post them. But you basically called the poster stupid for no reason.

 

[CFreymarc]

Best product introduction of all time. Bar none. Steve Jobs was the Thomas Edison of our generation.

I'd compare him more to Tesla than Edison. Tesla was always ahead of the market, didn't give into convention and had better products. If anything, Bill Gates is more like Edison.

Perhaps Jobs and Gates were Tesla and Edison in past lives and they are just doing the same thing over again with newer technology.

 

[brdeveloper]

Not understanding is obvious from your post. You probably can't tell the difference between arial and times new roman or most likely never heard of them. You probably think a bucket of pale, slightly brownish sweet liquid is coffee and Chinese knock offs are are better than the originals. If you actually have a girlfriend, can you tell the difference between her and other women or is she a necessary nuisance?
Thank you for your honestly.
How did you manage to type frensi, because autocorrect wants to insert forensic.

Did I type "frensi"? I typed "frenesi" -- in my opinion, a good spelling for the greek "phrenesis". How do I spell it in english? Frenzy? Well, I'm not a native speaker, try doing better in portuguese. You probably never had to browse into a filesystem or had to do anything barely complex or exotic in a phone so all you needed in 2007 were a good-looking touchscreen phone. There were a lot of good-looking, functional phones without an apple engraved in the rear side. I see a lot of north-american-centric bias here.

I can see beauty and functionality in a Mac, but -- although I could afford an iPhone and price is not the question here -- I've never been too impressed with an iPhone. Now, having one I can play everyday, it seems that the superficial impressions I had from some friends' iPhones were just right.

 

[Renzatic]

resistive (to touch) screens...

You don't know what touch resistive means, do you? You could use a finger just as well a stylus on resistive screens. Or a ballpoint pen. Or a piece of wood. Or the edge of a keyboard. That's because it tracks by resistance against the screen. It doesn't mean it's resistant to touch.