Steve Jobs Announced the iPhone and Apple TV 18 Years Ago Today

[turbineseaplane]

Does anyone else think that in hindsight the world and tech would have been a better if the iPhone had flopped? Lately I've been having this thought. Maybe the narcissism and ignorance of social media wouldn't have spread as fast without computers in our pockets. Maybe our privacy rights would be stronger, more physical media and ownership of our own products as well as right to repair. Not trying to sound like a luddite just a thought experiment. Perhaps a large segment of our population doesn't need to always be connected. The iPhone opened a door that led to the digital world absorbing the physical one, where as I believe it should augment the real world.

It could have been worse

Someone was going to do something iPhone like at some point and imagine if, like Microsoft, Apple had totally missed mobile and the entire iPhone was not a thing at this point!

Apple actually could be borderline irrelevant if that had happened, as unlike a MS, Apple doesn't have the other business interests and directions to save them in the way that MS does/has now.

 

[turbineseaplane]

I got a downvote from someone I've ignored. If only ignoring them meant they couldn't vote on comments as well.

From your lips to gods ears
Been a desired feature of mine here --- forever

 

[iMac The Knife]

From your lips to gods ears
Been a desired feature of mine here --- forever

Is there anyway to submit an enhancement request to the MR folks?

 

[turbineseaplane]

Is there anyway to submit an enhancement request to the MR folks?

This is a request they know about I’m pretty sure. I think it’s a limitation of the forum software.

 

[green_diyos]

I bought my 2007 iPhone 2G in December that year at the ATT Store near the Apple Store in Naples, FL.

Why not the Apple Store? At the time Apple Inc were declining non-US credit cards. So I had to walk across the street to buy 3 units to ship back to PHL.

It was easily SIM-unlocked.

Looking back I wish we instead waited for 8 months later for the release of the iPhone 3G on Globe postpaid.

 

[Spock]

Are you getting it?? I loved that Keynote. One of, if not his best Apple keynotes.

 

[XboxEvolved]

The spring before it was announced I was at the now defunct tradeshow E3 and the guy that was in charge of Microsoft Mobile Division was giving me and other journalist a demo of everything you could do with "Live Anywhere" something that didn't really pan out, on phone such as the Motorola Q. That was the first time I had really messed with a Q, and I thought "Oh this is a sharp phone its like the RAZR but fancier" and then I saw the iPhone at Jan Macworld.

I thought it was all magic tricks. I thought it was freaking insane, and there was no way it was that good. Over the next year or so I had a friend that worked for RIM that was completely clueless and was sucking up whatever smoke RIM was blowing up his ass, a guy that was so knowledgeable was such a dummy about what was clearly, the future of mobile and of communication in general. I showed my daughter a video of it when she was about 12, and she was asking, "Why are all the people shocked when they see pinch to zoom or when they unlock the screen with that weird slider thing?" and I told her, "Because there was Before iPhone, and After iPhone, and everyone in the audience was witnessing history, and also none of that stuff even existed before that."

Truly the greatest product of all of our lifetimes, but like any great invention has had plenty of negatives to society as well.

 

[XboxEvolved]

Are you getting it?? I loved that Keynote. One of, if not his best Apple keynotes.

They could make a movie just about the development all the way up to that keynote for the iPhone. It was incredible.

 

[iMac The Knife]

Are you getting it?? I loved that Keynote. One of, if not his best Apple keynotes.

The only keynote that was better, IMO, was the keynote for the launch of the original Macintosh back in '84.

 

[Belisama]

Macrumors tomorrow:

Steve Jobs Announced the iPhone and Apple TV 18 Years Ago Yesterday​

 

[turbineseaplane]

Didn’t realize the Apple TV was introduced at the same time as the iTV. The 80s into the 99s were certainly exciting time in tech. Innovation was abounding.

?
This happened in 2007

 

[freedomlinux]

The original Apple TV sure was something! And completely different than the gen2 etc, at it was a Pentium M x86 computer in the 1st generation only.

Back then, the Apple TV was entirely out of my reach - remember the launch price was $299 for 40GB and $399 for 120GB! In the past couple years, I've picked one up and managed to get it to run Mac OS X (poorly)

 

[XboxEvolved]

This is a request they know about I’m pretty sure. I think it’s a limitation of the forum software.

I'm not 100% sure but I think the software is custom. At one point they were running off of vBulletin way back in the day but they basically mimicked that once they scaled the site for different devices in the HTML5 era. I just did a quick inspect on the sites code and as far as I can tell this is all custom but I've also been out of the game for over 10 years so what the hell do I know.

 

[iGüey]

Crazy that Macy Gray is forever immortalized by the iPhone announcement.

I think she is even more known by being the image at the boxes of the first iPod touch, which by the way is the very same image presented at the iPhone keynote.

 

[I7guy]

?
This happened in 2007

Correct and my point not very well stated that by the time 2007 rolled around innovation was difficult discern. In then89s and 90s innovation smacked one in the face.

 

[WarmWinterHat]

The original Apple TV sure was something! And completely different than the gen2 etc, at it was a Pentium M x86 computer in the 1st generation only.

Back then, the Apple TV was entirely out of my reach - remember the launch price was $299 for 40GB and $399 for 120GB! In the past couple years, I've picked one up and managed to get it to run Mac OS X (poorly)

I never saw me in action, but recall people were installing OS X on them to use as cheap Macs.

Picked up one at a Goodwill a few years later for $10 and quickly flipped it for near $100. There was some sort of MPEG decoder card you could install and use it as a standard HTPC.

 

[jicon]

I bought in to the Apple TV right away. In comparison to iPhone... well, it took me eleven years later to get an iPhone, let alone any cell phone.

I think I tried converting every DVD I had to a digital format, have them sitting in a folder on an external drive on my Mac, and with advent of pirating last night's TV shows.

I ended up creating a USB stick for the original Apple TV that could install a software variant pre-Plex called Boxee to watch shows/movies without having to go through iTunes. They ended up releasing their own hardware device years later... the key difference was as good as it was, the hardware fried for me after a few years. Something I've only had happen with a singular Apple product, an Airport Express.

 

[klasma]

I remember when I got "mocked" for having an iPhone because I could not just send photos over Bluetooth, had no copy / paste or how I had to use my finger instead of a stylus which everyone that hadn't even tried it, deemed "inaccurate".

Those are still all valid points. Text selection and cursor placement is still difficult with the finger, on-screen buttons often too small, slider controls don’t release exactly where you want them.

 

[klasma]

What do you mean, 18 years? Delete this, I feel old.

It reminds me I already spent too much of my life time on smartphones.

 

[Devyn89]

It's wild how much this product actually did change the world. Like I hate when companies go around being like this product is world changing - but this one really was. In positive and negative ways for sure but it's hard to deny how much everyone having a modern smartphone did change a lot of things dramatically.

My first iPhone was the 3G (the first one available in Canada). I was the first of my friend group to get an iPhone (or android - many friends preferred android). We used to download truth or dare apps from the App Store and play them at parties. I also had lots of those silly early apps like the lighter one that was just a giant looking lighter on the screen, and Talking Carl where it would repeat back what you said in a funny voice. Good memories that the iPhone enhanced (still would have good memories without it obviously, they'd just be different).

 

[fenderbass146]

As much as I enjoy my phone I wish the modern smart phone never happened. So many of societies issues can be linked to constant 24/7 social media access.

 

[ericinboston]

...and Tim Cook has announced???...after 13.5 years? Just the Watch in 2015.

Other than Apple Watch, it's just the same old stuff under Cook's tenure: a product "updates" with mediocre and few changes. Nobody expects revolutionary changes every year or 2 or 3, but come on man...going on 14 years and Apple still sells the same 3 things from when Steve left: Macs, iPhones, and iPads.

 

[turbineseaplane]

...and Tim Cook has announced???...after 13.5 years? Just the Watch in 2015.

Other than Apple Watch, it's just the same old stuff under Cook's tenure: a product "updates" with mediocre and few changes. Nobody expects revolutionary changes every year or 2 or 3, but come on man...going on 14 years and Apple still sells the same 3 things from when Steve left: Macs, iPhones, and iPads.

Don't forget "the era of spatial computing" that Tim ushered in with the Vision Pro!
You know ... the product they just quietly stopped manufacturing after not even one year on the market

 

[turbineseaplane]

Those are still all valid points. Text selection and cursor placement is still difficult with the finger, on-screen buttons often too small, slider controls don’t release exactly where you want them.

Should get fixed in iOS 43

 

[iGüey]

Does anyone else think that in hindsight the world and tech would have been a better if the iPhone had flopped? Lately I've been having this thought. Maybe the narcissism and ignorance of social media wouldn't have spread as fast without computers in our pockets. Maybe our privacy rights would be stronger, more physical media and ownership of our own products as well as right to repair. Not trying to sound like a luddite just a thought experiment. Perhaps a large segment of our population doesn't need to always be connected. The iPhone opened a door that led to the digital world absorbing the physical one, where as I believe it should augment the real world.

I think it would happen anyway, I mean, a brand or another but at the end we would have had a hiper-connected smartphone some way. Remember that just before the iPhone, the Blackberry existed, and as with the iPhone nowadays, those days everyone wanted to have a Blackberry, so for most of us, the Blackberry was our first smartphone indeed.