The iPhone
The First iPhone unveiled on January 9, 2007
“Every once in a while a revolutionary product comes along that changes everything,” he began. He referred to two earlier examples: the original Macintosh, which “changed the whole computer industry,” and the first iPod, which “changed the entire music industry.” Then he carefully built up to the product he was about to launch: “Today, we’re introducing three revolutionary products of this class. The first one is a widescreen iPod with touch controls. The second is a revolutionary mobile phone. And the third is a breakthrough Internet communications device.” He repeated the list for emphasis, then asked, “Are you getting it? These are not three separate devices, this is one device, and we are calling it iPhone.”
That was how Steve Jobs unveiled the iPhone in January 2007’s Macworld in San Francisco.
Three Revolutionary Products in One. Yes that was how revolutionary the iPhone was.
Of course, it didn’t appear that revolutionary back then. But looking back now no one can deny that.
Whenever I think of one technology product in the last decade that changed the way we communicate and experience the world, the one which completely changed our mobile experience. It has to be the iPhone.
So many features and so many firsts.
Touch Screen
Swipe to open - the simple and fun on-screen slider that activated the devices when it went dormant.
Sensor - to figure out when you put the phone to you rear, so that your lobes didn’t accidentally activate some function.
Onscreen keyboard with Software instead of hardware
Gorilla Glass
And many more…
It combined innovation in both hardware and software, some of which were never tried before. Some of it became so successful and were followed by many companies since then.
Though some of the technologies and innovation used have been there before but Jobs and the team made smart use of it.
The thing about Innovation we often miss is that innovation is often recombinant. It combines technologies and ideas that came before it. Innovators rarely come up with new ideas; instead, they convert old ideas into new ones, adapting them from one context to another. But the conviction to strive to make it work and make it better is what makes the difference.
The biggest example of this recombinant innovation was the Multi Touch technology used in iPhones. There was a small company in Delaware called FingerWorks which was already making a line of multi-touch trackpads. Founded by two academics at the University of Delaware, John Elias and Wayne Westerman, FingerWorks had developed some tablets with multi-touch sensing capabilities and taken out patents on ways to translate various finger gestures, such as pinches and swipes, into useful functions. In early 2005 Apple quietly acquired the company, all of its patents, and the services of its two founders.
I also wrote a Twitter thread on the Story of iPhone sometime back. If you like to read threads please do check it out.
I will do another blog on another feature sometime soon. Please leave comments if you like the story or want to hear more.
