APPLE’S IPHONE TURNS 10
Apple proved that a smartphone could change the world in just 10 years
FEW people realized it at the time, but the world shifted fundamentally a decade ago when Steve Jobs pulled the first iPhone from Apple’s bag of technological tricks.
“Every once in a while, a revolutionary product comes along that changes everything,” Jobs declared as he paced across a San Francisco stage.
It obviously wasn’t an empty boast. We all know now that Jobs’ “magical product” has reshaped culture, shaken up industries, put computers in billions of pockets and made it possible to do just about anything with a few taps on a screen. Besides its then 3.5-inch touch screen, the first iPhone featured a browser for on-the-go web surfing and built-in apps to check email and get directions.
Apple has sold more than one billion iPhones since its debut, spawning millions of mobile applications and prodding other technology companies to make similar smartphones that have become like phantom limbs for many of us.
Phones have gotten so smart that they even talk back to us via helpful digital concierges such as the iPhone’s Siri and the recently introduced Assistant on Google’s Pixel phone.
“IPhone is an essential part of our customers’ lives, and today more than ever it is redefining the way we communicate, entertain, work and live,” Apple’s current CEO, Tim Cook, boasted in a retrospective that the company posted on its website.
The iPhone’s revolutionary touch screen doomed the BlackBerry, another once-popular internet-connected phone. Mobile phones and their tablet cousins triggered a downturn in personal computer sales that is still unfolding.
An estimated 219 million desktop and laptop computers shipped worldwide last year, down from 264 million in 2007, according to the research firm Gartner Inc. Meanwhile, nearly 1.9 billion mobile phones shipped last year, up from 1.15 billion in 2007.
All told, Gartner estimates about five billion mobile phones are currently in use around the world compared to 1.3 billion PCs.
The eroding popularity of PCs spurred shake-ups at powerful tech companies such as Microsoft, Intel, Hewlett-Packard and Dell, none of which adapted nimbly to the mobile world unleashed by the iPhone.
The iPhone’s success helped make Jobs a revered figure for many, and one whose death was mourned around the world.
The device has established Apple as the world’s most profitable company with earnings of $45.7 billion on sales of $216 billion during its latest fiscal year.