I never get tire of re-watching the first iPhone being introduced in YouTube. It's truly a technical revolution that changes the world forever.
And I never get tired of watching Steve Balmer’s reaction to it on YouTube all those years ago, especially now after Microsoft left the smartphone market because it couldn’t compete.
And the reaction of one of the lead Android engineers admitting he knew they were going to have to start over after seeing the iPhone. And turn their copy machines on they did, to quote Yoda.
I remember that Steve Jobs teased the iPhone presentation by mentioning that he was introducing three things. I think they were a music & video player, an Internet access device and a communication device. He repeated the three items a couple of times and then he gave up the secret that all three devices were actually. one device: the iPhone.
On June 27 that year, I woke up early and stood in line for 11 hours at the local AT&T store to get the first iPhone. I was worried all the time if they had sufficient supplies for all the people in line before me and me. They did and I became a happy iPhone customer that day.
That was a fun year 2007. Remember they did not have initially Cut and Paste?
I never get tire of re-watching the first iPhone being introduced in YouTube. It's truly a technical revolution that changes the world forever.
And I never get tired of watching Steve Balmer’s reaction to it on YouTube all those years ago, especially now after Microsoft left the smartphone market because it couldn’t compete.
And the reaction of one of the lead Android engineers admitting he knew they were going to have to start over after seeing the iPhone. And turn their copy machines on they did, to quote Yoda.
How many of you take advantage of being able to type long iMessages with paragraph breaks? Does it not bother you that you cannot scroll that text box (you know, to do proofreading; people do proofread, right??) without iOS getting “confused” and “assuming” you want to close the keyboard? Just me, huh? Because that’s what it feels like.
It feels like I’m the only person who uses this device enough to notice the mountain of bugs and conflicting gestures that it has become. It feels like no one at Apple actually uses their own products and that people on these Apple forums cannot see flaws.
Today’s Apple is not the same company as the Apple being showcased in the years of the iPhone’s first few years. I want that Apple back. There is no Steve Jobs to have back, and there’s also a lot of lost vision and attention to detail that seems it’s never coming back as well. It’s depressing.
Am I missing something here? To scroll, just touch and hold the spacebar. The keyboard turns into a trackpad and you scroll to where you want to make an edit. Or are you referring to something else?
I share your sentiment as I have my own frustrations, but I disagree with your conclusion. When comparing current day iPhones with the iPhone as a new product there are many details that cannot be glossed over. One that conflicts with your statement of Apple not caring, is that the first iPhone was extremely limited. These imposed limits that Apple chose to put on the original (and earlier) iPhones is what made it ‘just work’. It wasn’t trying to be everything, it was doing 3 things well. As time and competition caught up, additional features come into the fold. More features = more places for bugs to hide. Whenever, I start to get frustrated by something that I feel Apple should be doing better at, I look to my friends that have Android or Alexa and see that they also suffer from their own bugs/limits.
Unfortunately that Apple no longer exists. It is one of the biggest, wealthiest and most successful companies in the world now. They are no longer maintaining a single vision from which to grow; but, rather, a larger and all encompassing one. They can no longer be a company that will surprise everyone with a new piece of tech, like AR/VR glasses, that will revolutionize the industry and be unlike anything from Apple that we have ever seen. Everything they do in this space has to about being a piece of the larger picture for Apple, which is to say how does AR/VR fit into what and where Apple is currently headed. And for that, IMO, Apple can never be what there were 20 years ago. It can be seen as a sad reality, but such is life. I cannot be my teenage, carefree, and self-absorbed me ever again; I have seen and experienced too many things. No matter how hard I try, I can never be that again. 🤷♂️
This day is depressing in retrospect as Steve was proud of his new invention. It was the new iPod and they believed it would be the only one of it's kind and rightfully so.
The 62% iPod marketshare should have easily translated to %70 iPhone marketshare.
The fact the U.S. and tech companies allowed android to create patent-infringing knockoffs just to make a quick buck for carriers who doubted iPhone is sad. Then came the commercials attacking Apple which created the rabid iKnockoff Knights who shit on everything Apple worked hard for THEM to enjoy!
Apple has 78% of the $1,000 and up smartphone market and around 55% of the $400 and up market. The iPhone completely dominates flagships. I don’t think Apple cares about all the budget Android devices being sold.
Apple is secure now, but it's not the same hungry, risk taking company it was.
I strongly disagree with this. Apple has done several things in the past few years that are in the same category of “the industry thinks that’s a dumb risky overpriced idea, the next Apple failure” that turn out to be the opposite.
Apple Watch AirPods Apple Silicon Macs
The first two were roundly criticized, even by Apple fans, as unnecessary and overpriced. But both are now very popular products and heavy contributors to bottom line growth, especially because both work best with Apple services, which is recurring subscription income, turning that into another contributor to bottom line growth. Like the iPhone and MacBook Air, now that AirPods are a success, the design of wireless earphones from other companies suddenly look suspiciously like AirPods. Because Apple took a big risk that changed the game...again.
Changing the processor architecture is something most computer makers would never consider doing. Apple did it twice in its “hungry, risk-taking” days, and once again now...just like the “hungry, risk-taking” days. If that wasn’t enough...if another computer company was to change processors, the chances are vanishingly small that it would be their own design. Yet that is the latest, and most radical, risk that Apple has taken today. Yet like the earlier Apple risks that we worship so much, Apple took the risk of the M1 switch because the potential rewards are so massively huge, and we are definitely seeing that in the astounding power per watt/power per dollar ratios that the M1 is bringing.
(and yes I went to several MacWorlds and owned a Power Computing desktop)
And because of that risk taking in Apple Silicon, thing's like the Apple Vision can be made better, a lot better than the competition. Most of the tech geeks/analysts said no loudly, the mere suggestion that Apple get involved with cpu/soc, that howl is the same for modems, servers, or game engines.....But Apple will need to take a more proactive approach in servers or game engines going into the future.
The cell gone market was unbelievably massive. Anyone who launched a decent product was going to profit.
Apple has numerous safety cushions going for it going into that market:
1 the Apple fan base.
At the time, rabid. Ready to jump on anything new.
2. The success of iPod - and the major desire to see it incorporated into a phone. The ROKR was an initial stab, but mostly by partner Motorola and it only served to make folks want an apple made device that did much better than that half-hearted cash grab. There was massive pent-up demand for it.
3. An internal team that was absolutely killing it with vision and implementation - from the multitouch ui tech to the rubber band effect to the basically “all screen design” of its day, to running an actually cabpable OS, it was an “aha” moment through and through.
Literally the only challenge apple had to face was that it was a newcomer. So the competitors pushed a media assault and the typical “but that’s not how it’s always been done” tech/luddite outlets were trying to poo-poo. Meanwhile, and yet… it sold. So compelling was it, that it was a success even at launch despite having pretty sucky texting features. But dang if it didn’t work great as a phone, have game-changing voicemail, email, and web browsing features, and was also the best iPod ever.
Everyone wanted an iPod and everyone needed a phone. Pretty simple recipe for success. It was quite obvious actually. Not so much a risk. More like a “shoot me if I don’t do this” kind of thing.
Contrast with the Vision Pro, where no one was really asking for it, internal staff wasn’t excited about - actually had concerns, there is no killer product it folds into itself, and has met a somewhat tepid /polarizing response from those who’ve tried it (think Gayle king vs developer who needs it to sell in order to make money from their app).
Whereas the iPhone succeeded in combining things that people already do and love - take their music with them, take their internet and email with them, and use stowable phones - the Vision Pro suffers by basically just trying to cram a computer into something nobody likes to have - a device strapped to their face/head while tethered to a battery pack that they have to also wear. The iPhone, you could use and forget. It fits in with your life and enhances it. The Vision Pro - you have to fit in with it.
The iPhone was an unbelievable convergence of everything people loved in a form factor that was so far ahead of its time, it’s basically unchanged today - and all competitors could do was outright copy.
The iPhone was a once in a lifetime product, not just a spec upgrade of a familiar concept. It also jumped into a lucrative market and took over.
The Vision Pros problem is that it’s likely the best headset ever made, but that particular market isn’t the hot rage that some had hoped it would be. It will be a nice niche system for those who want it.
The iPhone, however, is and was an absolute must-have.
The craziest part of that WHOLE announcement was the way the audience reacted to it all.
Today we’re announcing not one, but THREE best in class products. A widescreen iPod with touch controls (huge applause) A breakthrough internet communications device (ehhhh ok) A mobile phone (massive applause)
Then he describes how they're all one device…
“An iPod, a communicator, a phone. An iPod, a communicator, a phone. Are you getting it yet? It’s not three separate devices, it’s one device. And we call it iPhone.”
And people went nuts. But what NOBODY at the time knew, was that the ‘breakthrough internet communications device’ was the part that would completely change the world.
Comments
And the reaction of one of the lead Android engineers admitting he knew they were going to have to start over after seeing the iPhone. And turn their copy machines on they did, to quote Yoda.
I share your sentiment as I have my own frustrations, but I disagree with your conclusion. When comparing current day iPhones with the iPhone as a new product there are many details that cannot be glossed over. One that conflicts with your statement of Apple not caring, is that the first iPhone was extremely limited. These imposed limits that Apple chose to put on the original (and earlier) iPhones is what made it ‘just work’. It wasn’t trying to be everything, it was doing 3 things well. As time and competition caught up, additional features come into the fold. More features = more places for bugs to hide. Whenever, I start to get frustrated by something that I feel Apple should be doing better at, I look to my friends that have Android or Alexa and see that they also suffer from their own bugs/limits.
Unfortunately that Apple no longer exists. It is one of the biggest, wealthiest and most successful companies in the world now. They are no longer maintaining a single vision from which to grow; but, rather, a larger and all encompassing one. They can no longer be a company that will surprise everyone with a new piece of tech, like AR/VR glasses, that will revolutionize the industry and be unlike anything from Apple that we have ever seen. Everything they do in this space has to about being a piece of the larger picture for Apple, which is to say how does AR/VR fit into what and where Apple is currently headed. And for that, IMO, Apple can never be what there were 20 years ago. It can be seen as a sad reality, but such is life. I cannot be my teenage, carefree, and self-absorbed me ever again; I have seen and experienced too many things. No matter how hard I try, I can never be that again. 🤷♂️
And because of that risk taking in Apple Silicon, thing's like the Apple Vision can be made better, a lot better than the competition. Most of the tech geeks/analysts said no loudly, the mere suggestion that Apple get involved with cpu/soc, that howl is the same for modems, servers, or game engines.....But Apple will need to take a more proactive approach in servers or game engines going into the future.
The touch screen interface was the killer app. The package was unlike anything. All the rumors were completely wrong.
I did not have the confidence it was going to be a huge hit and didn't buy stock. But I did later.
1 the Apple fan base.
Today we’re announcing not one, but THREE best in class products.
A widescreen iPod with touch controls (huge applause)
A breakthrough internet communications device (ehhhh ok)
A mobile phone (massive applause)
Then he describes how they're all one device…
“An iPod, a communicator, a phone. An iPod, a communicator, a phone. Are you getting it yet? It’s not three separate devices, it’s one device. And we call it iPhone.”
And people went nuts. But what NOBODY at the time knew, was that the ‘breakthrough internet communications device’ was the part that would completely change the world.