Remembering iPhone Two Years Later

Two years ago today, Apple launched the original iPhone. In June 2007, I described using Apple’s smartphone as “life changing.” Despite my grumpiness about iPhone battery life and 3G call quality, I stand by the description.

I covered the launch for eWEEK, writing post “The iPhone Moment” (Two months ago tomorrow, I was laid off from eWEEK, as editor of Apple Watch and Microsoft Watch). At Apple’s suggestion, I went to the company store at Montgomery Mall in Bethesda, Md. for the launch festivities.

No event I ever covered as a journalist stands out like the original iPhone launch. I’m a studier of people, culture and society. The launch event delighted with its eclectic, non-geek group of buyers. I blogged two years ago:

The people turning out to buy iPhones yesterday made up one motley group—representing a broad swath of America. I saw in the line people of all races, ages and lifestyles. For example, near the front, waited a brawny Hispanic dude, with cut T-Shirt that exposed a praying hands tattoo on his upper right arm. He looked more like the kind of guy who works with metal, using his hands, rather than holding a pretty cell phone. Yet he was typical of the people waiting; they shattered geek stereotypes.

Before iPhone, and even after, handset manufacturers targeted gadget geeks as first adopters of their products. But iPhone captured the imagination and buying inclination of people who wanted cell phones that were more personal and that better reflected their personalities. The smartphone appealed to people confined by—no, imprisoned by—by gadgets designed by nerds for nerds. The iPhone represented freedom to be.

June 29, 2007: iPhone buyers Chris, Steve and Eddie hold up their old mobiles

Several of the iPhone buyers spoke of being caught up in a historical moment, of the device’s release as a watershed event for handsets and how they are marketed. A buyer named Steve told me:

I think this is a day that you’re going to see a change in how computers, how handheld computers are done…It’s a little marketing history. I’m seeing it that way…I think we’ll look back in 10 or 15 years, and like on that day the gadget came out—same thing with iPod—it changed the game.

Buyer Steve’s assessment was right but not his time horizon. People already are looking back two years later at how iPhone “changed the game”:

  • iPhone imitators/competitors are everywhere
  • Touch is now the standard user interface for smartphones
  • Google is a developer of mobile operating systems and services
  • Smartphones are beginning to replace PCs for user-generated content

Apple started these trends—and more—with the original iPhone. Two years ago today.

iPhone buyer Steve had a countdown timer; less than 7 minutes to go

any’s Windows Mobile strategy, which is a disaster. Windows Mobile 6.5 is obsolete before its release, whether measured by iPhone OS or competing operating systems from Google, Nokia, Palm or Research in Motion. While Microsoft clings to the perceived safety of the Windows PC, real people reach for the unfettered freedom of mobile handsets.

Your next computer will be a smartphone.

Does she look like a geek to you?

ve-jobs-return-is-still-vaporware/” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener”>he won’t return to full-time work as chief executive, and that COO Tim Cook will eventually be promoted to CEO. That opinion isn’t changed, but I do hope that I’m wrong about it. I’d like nothing more than to be wrong and to see Steve Jobs dazzle everyone with more magic.

The iPhone is magical, the way it responds to touch. The entire iPhone creative team deserves some special prize for how this one device captures the imagination and changed how handheld devices are designed and used. More importantly, the second-generation iPhone, along with Apple’s App Store, stands at the precipice of computing’s future.

The PC that matters most is the one you carry. Damn the desktop.