Memories
Stepping back in time:
It often feels like they have been around forever.
In fact, many of us have become so used to having a smartphone in our hands that we simply can’t imagine life without them.
Leaving the house without one often feels odd, like we have left a part of ourselves behind. So it feels strange to remember that Apple’s game-changer was launched only 14 years ago.
It was January 9, 2007, when founder Steve Jobs introduced us to the iphone for the very first time. And following months of speculation his typically enthusiastic sales pitch at the Macworld Expo trade show in San Francisco signalled the start of a technological revolution.
Gone, now, were the days of chunky mobile phones used merely to make calls and send texts. Jobs’ latest toy was effectively a handheld computer, music player, phone and camera rolled into one.
Soon, smartphone users would be able to select from thousands of applications, most available free from Apple’s own app store and providing easy access to a portable world of books, games, podcasts, videos, music and social media.
The first iphone wasn’t advanced by today’s standards, and it wasn’t the first mobile web browser but it marked a pivotal moment in smartphone history, with many of the devices on the market today taking cues from Apple’s designs.
Rather than the conventional keypad, the iphone instead boasted a large touch-screen.
“We are all born with the ultimate pointing device – our fingers – and iphone uses them to create the most revolutionary user interface since the mouse,” said Jobs.
The iphone was, he added, “a revolutionary and magical product that is literally five years ahead of any other mobile phone.
“It works like magic...it’s far more accurate than any touch display ever shipped.
It ignores unintended touches. It’s super-smart.”
He demonstrated the phone’s music-playing capabilities, which built on the success of Apple’s MP3 player, using The Beatles’ song Lovely Rita. Jobs added: “The ipod changed everything in 2001. We’re going to do it again with the iphone in 2007.”
And it did. Since then, Apple has released more than 20 different versions of the iphone.
Apple has redesigned, reimagined and overhauled the iphone, moving from a tiny, plastic device with hardly any memory to increasingly larger, more potent phones that, in 2021, would give most laptops a run for their money with respect to performance and processing power.
From touch and face ID to more megapixels and increasing gigabytes, the device has taken a leap forward with each new model. This year we eagerly await the release of the latest, the iphone 13.
On that January day 14 years ago it’s unlikely that even Steve Jobs, who died in 2011 following a sevenyear fight with pancreatic cancer, could have predicted just how seismic an impact smartphones would have on our lives.
Now, everything from working to shopping, and from banking to watching TV can be done through a smartphone. More than five billion people around the world use mobile services.
The iphone’s launch was certainly a pivotal moment that will be remembered in the world of technology for decades to come.