Today Marks the 13th Anniversary of When Steve Jobs Unveiled the Original iPhone

[dfs]

13 years ago today, then Apple CEO Steve Jobs took the stage at Macworld in San Francisco and surprised the world with the very first iPhone.

Jobs introduced the iPhone as if it were three separate products: an iPod with touch controls, a revolutionary mobile phone, and a breakthrough internet communications device. Today, the iPhone is still all of those things, but also so much more.

Apple has sold well over a billion iPhones since 2007, and as of last January, the company's active installed base had hit 1.4 billion devices. Though iPhone sales were down last year, the iPhone continues to be Apple's single most successful product.

Apple has steadily improved the iPhone over the years, refining the design over and over again, updating the camera, and adding new biometric features, and all of these changes have made the iPhone even more indispensable in our daily lives. Improvements over the years:

• 2008: App Store and 3G network support
  
• 2009: Personal Hotspot and video recording capabilities
  
• 2010: New form factor and Retina display
  
• 2011: Siri and iCloud
  
• 2012: 4-inch display, Lightning connector, and LTE
  
• 2013: Touch ID fingerprint sensor
  
• 2014: 4.7-inch and 5.5-inch displays
  
• 2015: 3D Touch, Live Photos, and 4K video recording
  
• 2016: Waterproofing, dual-lens camera for iPhone 7 Plus, no headphone jack
  
• 2017: No Home button, 5.8-inch OLED full screen display, wireless charging, fast charging, Face ID
  
• 2018: 5.8 and 6.5-inch OLED screen sizes, three iPhone lineup
  
• 2019: Night mode, triple-lens cameras

Rumors suggest the iPhone is going to see a major overhaul in 2020, with Apple set to debut 5G connectivity, a revamped iPhone 4-style frame design, 5.4, 6.1, and 6.7-inch iPhone sizes, and a time-of-flight laser-based camera system for better depth calculations and AR capabilities.

Article Link: Today Marks the 13th Anniversary of When Steve Jobs Unveiled the Original iPhone

13 years ago today, then Apple CEO Steve Jobs took the stage at Macworld in San Francisco and surprised the world with the very first iPhone.

Jobs introduced the iPhone as if it were three separate products: an iPod with touch controls, a revolutionary mobile phone, and a breakthrough internet communications device. Today, the iPhone is still all of those things, but also so much more.

Apple has sold well over a billion iPhones since 2007, and as of last January, the company's active installed base had hit 1.4 billion devices. Though iPhone sales were down last year, the iPhone continues to be Apple's single most successful product.

Apple has steadily improved the iPhone over the years, refining the design over and over again, updating the camera, and adding new biometric features, and all of these changes have made the iPhone even more indispensable in our daily lives. Improvements over the years:

• 2008: App Store and 3G network support
  
• 2009: Personal Hotspot and video recording capabilities
  
• 2010: New form factor and Retina display
  
• 2011: Siri and iCloud
  
• 2012: 4-inch display, Lightning connector, and LTE
  
• 2013: Touch ID fingerprint sensor
  
• 2014: 4.7-inch and 5.5-inch displays
  
• 2015: 3D Touch, Live Photos, and 4K video recording
  
• 2016: Waterproofing, dual-lens camera for iPhone 7 Plus, no headphone jack
  
• 2017: No Home button, 5.8-inch OLED full screen display, wireless charging, fast charging, Face ID
  
• 2018: 5.8 and 6.5-inch OLED screen sizes, three iPhone lineup
  
• 2019: Night mode, triple-lens cameras

Rumors suggest the iPhone is going to see a major overhaul in 2020, with Apple set to debut 5G connectivity, a revamped iPhone 4-style frame design, 5.4, 6.1, and 6.7-inch iPhone sizes, and a time-of-flight laser-based camera system for better depth calculations and AR capabilities.

Article Link: Today Marks the 13th Anniversary of When Steve Jobs Unveiled the Original iPhone

There is one thing about the contemporary iPhone I think Steve would have very much disliked. When he came back as Apple's CEO one of his first reforms was to severely prune the number of Apple's offerings. He saw that they had proliferated to the point that both the company's customers and its sales force were hopelessly confused and that this situation was damaging sales. Of course things aren't that bad yet, but they're starting to head in that direction. There are simply too damn many models being marketed at once, a very un-Stevelike strategy. If he were to come back and take over once more he'd quickly put his foot down. Apple's current leadership needs more self-discipline.

 

[xalea]

Wish the 11 had that music interface. Apple Music is horrible.

 

[tongxinshe]

"Apple has sold well over a billion iPhones since 2007, and as of last January, the company's active installed base had hit 1.4 billion devices."

sold over a billion and 1.4 active... huh?

the level of journalism is sometimes astounding! maths fail on the most basic of levels.

perhaps you meant to write "sold well over 2 or 3 billion"...???

The "well over a billion" is specifically about "iPhones", while the "1.4 billion" "active installed base" is about "devices", which includes iPads and iPod Touches.

 

[Jim Lahey]

It’s interesting that Jobs himself said you’re lucky if you get to work on one ”iPhone” your whole career, but now, tech forum types still mourning the loss of their hero, want Cook’s family killed because he doesn’t innovate a new “iPhone“ once a day and twice on weekends 🤪

 

[nylonsteel]

wow seems like ages ago
r.i.p. mr jobs

 

[SigEp265]

I had the first iPhone ... couldn't send or receive MMS

 

[Abazigal]

It’s interesting that Jobs himself said you’re lucky if you get to work on one ”iPhone” your whole career, but now, tech forum types still mourning the loss of their hero, want Cook’s family killed because he doesn’t innovate a new “iPhone“ once a day and twice on weekends

The irony is that it is often the tech enthusiasts and fanboys who end up being even more clueless about tech than the people they so vilify.

 

[jonnysods]

Showed this to my 13 year old son today just to let him see how amazing that day was, and how far it's come.

 

[LizKat]

I still remember the day I got my little hands on that bad boy. Love at 1st touch.

Yep. My experience too. That first iPhone is the one and only Apple product I ever went and stood in line for on launch day. One of my brothers had died the previous week, the funeral preparations had been completely exhausting, I looked at my calendar in a moment of respite one night and saw I'd noted the launch date for the iPhone that next day... and I thought yeah, well...

... but then I remembered how much my bro had loved the iBook and the iPod and the iTunes music I'd given him over the years. So I decided by God I'm gonna drive up to Albany and get that damn phone and just laugh my ass off to imagine the bro with his rebellious streak grinning down at me and helping me shrug off any "gee, do you think that's really appropriate at a time like this?" comments from nosy neighbors or kin wondering where I was off to in that time reserved for mourning.

Glad I did it. It was a completely tonic experience: bumped into some teenaged kids holding a box of their garage band's first issue of CDs, standing on line near me and waiting to buy their own first iPhones. They were so excited about their music landing on disc that they were handing some out to nearby iPhone line standers with "try it, and don't forget to talk us up if you like it!" Guy next to me laughed and said "Don't forget to save some to sell..." and somebody else hollered "Don't forget to rip it to iTunes and stick it on yer iPhone". The ambience was like that of a line to get into a family restaurant on a summer night, and people were cheering as customers ahead of us walked back out in possession of the prize we were all there to get for ourselves.

Anyway walking to the parking lot later with my iPhone in its special little shopping bag --and laughing with others at the glum faces of some poor blokes stuck manning a Verizon kiosk in the mall's walkway!-- was exactly the kind of thing I needed to get me past the end of what was otherwise one of the worst weeks of my life.

Totally unforgettable day and I'd never have been there had it not been for that truly compelling keynote presentation Jobs had given back in January that year. I mean I've never since then flipped open my laptop's calendar to note a launch date for anything on the day of a keynote, even if I am on something like my 8th iPhone now and living in a house full of assorted other Apple gear.

 

[Wanted797]

I remember wanting a smartphone in 2008 in high school. Australia didn’t get the 2G. Compared to others the 3G was missing so much like a video camera.

I used one and just knew. Yep this is what will take off. It was easy to use and so smooth and fluid. Unlike things like the BlackBerry Storm.
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I swear Steve Jobs was the reason why I loved Apple so much back in the day.

Keynotes haven’t been the same since.

He cared about the product and that came through in his presentation. Now it’s always ‘we prepared a video’.

 

[sideshowuniqueuser]

I saw the YouTube video yesterday on the issues Apple employees faced on the creation of the iPhone. It’s astonishing how people (and myself) praise the iPhone for its greatness and magical way of use. We seem to forget all the brain power and time used to create such device. I recommend it to y’all:

Ah so it was Johnny Ive who didn't want the headphone jack right from the beginning.

 

[urnotl33t]

verizon customers had that issue for several years after 3g...

Yeah on AT&T, I was doing voice and data simultaneously constantly. From time to time, that amazed some folks I was with. It wasn’t an iPhone thing exclusively, tho, but I certainly showed it off to my parents who were stuck on Verizon for various (reasonable) reasons. That feature was incredibly handy many times when on calls, conference calls, etc.

 

[44267547]

The Steve Jobs era was what started it all. But personally, the iPhone has transformed into something today I think Jobs would be Proud of. Crazy with all the technological advances we have today.

 

[827538]

I still remember the first time I used an iPhone, I was blown away.
It really was one of those things in history, to this day I'm still amazed by how incredibly good it is.
That presentation was a masterclass.

 

[Soba]

I bought mine not long after introduction and thought it was well worth the $599 price tag for 8GB of storage (and then got a $200 refund a week later when they announced a price drop). Real web browsing (goodbye forever, WAP) and scrolling sold me in a heartbeat.

In hindsight, one of my favorite moments in the history of Steve Jobs keynotes is when he prank called a local Starbucks.

(The barista was later identified as Ying Hang "Hannah" Zhang.)

Because Of Steve Jobs’s First Public iPhone Call, Starbucks Still Gets Orders For 4,000 Lattes

Six years and five iPhones later, Fast Company tracks down the recipient of Steve Jobs’s groundbreaking prank call, the first ever made from Apple’s original iPhone to the outside world.

www.fastcompany.com

 

[TheSkywalker77]

Love or hate Apple, you can't deny that the iPhone truly did change the world.

 

[alexandr]

Yeah on AT&T, I was doing voice and data simultaneously constantly. From time to time, that amazed some folks I was with. It wasn’t an iPhone thing exclusively, tho, but I certainly showed it off to my parents who were stuck on Verizon for various (reasonable) reasons. That feature was incredibly handy many times when on calls, conference calls, etc.

yea, my vz friends hated me for that)
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But the phone was only announced in January, didn't come out to June or so...?

very good point - i mistook the announcement for the release date)

 

[magicschoolbus]

Was CES going on at the same time.. if so, is kinda badass that apple was like ya guys were not going, just doing our own thing, concentrating on ourselves now.

 

[richinaus]

The iPhone is the single most influential technology development of my lifetime I think. It is the culmination of many technologies brought together into a single device that allowed so many changes to our lives.

 

[ghanwani]

The UI that changed it all. The UI that the whole world uses.

 

[Wide opeN]

Don't forget too it's the only iPhone to ever come with a cleaning cloth as well.

As someone who keeps a micro fiber cloth with me at all times, this stood out.

I had the Moto Q at the time and held out until like early 2008 to get the original. I instantly fell like a fool for waiting that long.

I played with Android from like 2011 - 2013 but came back with 5s and have been back since.

Honestly, no hyperbole... There's the world before iPhone and the world after iPhone.

THANK YOU APPLE AND STEVE!!!

🙏🏾

 

[BvizioN]

Interesting how the home screen basically stayed the same. Not sure what to think about that.

But i guess it works...

The home screen has evolved just as much as the hardware itself. The only thing that has not changed is the philosophy behind it.
Plus, what isn't broke does not need fixing. I seem to work pretty fine for 99% of the people I think. Symplicity is the key here.

 

[sakurarain]

I still kept the first gen. iPhone

 

[PostApple2016BrainWash]

The fact is that Steve Jobs wouldn't allow the iPhone X-11 to design with an ugly notch screen. In 2017, Steve Jobs will be unveiling a full-screen iPhone instead of a notch screen iPhone by Tim Cook.

 

[Hieveryone]

Wasn’t a good phone tbh. Kind of slow. Low quality camera. No Face ID, nothing.
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I still kept the first gen. iPhone View attachment 887804

nice pic!Did u take it with the iPhone 11 pro orMax