The January 9, 2007 al Macworld Conference & Expo Steve Jobs presented a smartphone that would make telecommunications history: iPhone turns 15. Apple promised it would reinvented the telephone. And it has succeeded, accelerating a technological change that has brought the whole world online.
Happy Birthday iPhone, the first model announced 15 years ago
“This is only the beginning. Apple reinvents the phone “. “This is just the beginning, Apple reinvents the phone.” An Apple-style slogan, full of inspiration (maybe even a po‘ arrogant). Ma fully centered: with the launch of the iPhone, which turns 15 today, the Apple has revolutionized the world of telecommunications and accelerated the technological revolution that we are all experiencing.
It wasn’t the first phone to go online (we said goodbye to Blackberry support recently). When traveling on the cellular network, loading a page online (at the time the most used search engine was Yahoo) sometimes took too long. In short, it wasn’t the first and it wasn’t perfect. But Steve Jobs wasn’t lying when he said he was “a revolutionary and magical product which is literally five years ahead of any other cell phone ”. Because first of all he understood exactly what the users wanted and satisfied them, with style.
Three devices in one
Technology lovers may remember some of the sentences spoken by Steve Jobs on the Macworld stage, in what would become the most important technology conference of the past 15 years. As a perfect performer, he began to seduce the public with the promise of three devices. A revolutionary portable phone, an iPod with a large screen and touch controls and a device for surfing the internet and sending emails, searching the browser and even finding maps (at the time we would have called it a PDA).
To then feel the amazement of the public when he reveals that all these three functions perform only one device: iPhone. A phone that not only called and surfed the internet. But it allowed us to access all the songs we listened to on the then beloved iPod, as well as take photographs (even if the camera gives 2MP and the 3.5-inch screen today would be considered really bad). And he did it with an original pointing device: “We are all born with the best pointing device: our fingers. And iPhone uses them to create the most revolutionary user interface since the time of the mouse ”.
In the original post on its website, Apple then explained how these three concepts were revolutionized by this smartphone (although few used this term at the time). He told how it was possible to synchronize all Mac or Yahoo contacts!, use a “revolutionary answering machine”, send SMS with a QWERTY keyboard. And then navigate with the speed of the EDGE (which today we would find frustrating) and download thousands of songs and music videos, hundreds of series and movies from the iTunes Store via WiFi.
Internet under our fingers
But the greatest of revolutions was the ability to access the vast internet world with the simple touch of our fingers. Blackberry had a proprietary system for sending emails, while iPhone used all the services IMAP e POP, from Microsoft Exchange to Google Gmail, as well as Apple .Mac Mail. It also allowed you to search on Safari (for the first time in the mobile version) using Yahoo! oppure Google Search, at the time not yet the undisputed search engine it is now.
All things we now take for granted. But that has become the minimum standard we expect from a smartphone precisely because Apple had the commercial strength of act as a point of referenceThe.
15 years of the iPhone: continuous technological progress
When iPhone hit the US market, the June 29, 2007, more than six months after the official announcement, it was a decidedly less powerful device than we are used to today. The processor was Samsung, while today Apple designs its A15 Bionic autonomously. They were alone 128MB from RAM, with the memory starting from a minimum of 4GB up to a maximum of 16GB. The lithium-ion battery had a capacity of 1400mAh. And the screen measured only 3.5 inches.
The price has also risen quite a lot: the model from 4GB cost only $ 499.
Ma la substance remains the same fifteen years later, although technology has made great strides in the meantime. That smartphone did not have a selfie camera, NFC was missing, there were no artificial intelligence processors. But it remains surprising how Apple has it centered the “main” concept of what a smartphone is at the first try.
The following year iPhone 3G arrived, which could travel on a faster internet line. Over the years new improvements have always arrived, which have made the our ‘immersion’ in the web deeper and deeper. Streaming movies in cinematic definition, the ability to work on the go and remotely control your home thermostat wasn’t even conceivable at the time. But iPhone has played a pivotal role in the technological advancement of the past 15 years. And even more on a social level: it is one of the main culprits (for better or for worse) for the fact that we always have the phone in our hands.
Fifteen years ago, Apple revolutionized the world of telecommunications with the iPhone. And now, in 2022, it looks like it wants to launch a viewer for augmented and virtual reality which, according to Cupertino’s calculations, will have an even greater social and technological impact. Ambition (and that pinch of arrogance) is not only in Apple’s past, but also in its future.
Waiting for the next tech revolution, we just have to say: Happy Birthday iPhone!