Today makes it the 16th year since Apple co-founder and former CEO, Steve Jobs introduced the first-gen iPhone at the Macworld Expo in San Francisco.
The device which was met with a number of criticisms from rival brands such as former Microsoft CEO has since become one of Apple’s highest-selling products across the globe making the company the world’s most valuable tech company.
Steve Jobs in fact made it known during the event that “Today, Apple is going to reinvent the phone,” Jobs said, unveiling the iPhone that stood apart given, at the time, its futuristic design, a multi-touch display with no physical keyboard, and iPhoneOS, a proper mobile operating system.
The iPhone definitely changed the smartphone market. It helped Google realize it needed to reinvent its Android operating system to support full-touch-screen smartphones.
In one of Job’s statements, he described the iPhone as an iPod with touch controls, that can also make phone calls, check emails, and access the internet.
When he brought the 3.5-inch iPhone out of his pocket, everyone cheered him on. The device back then had a set of cool technologies that were obviously new for that time and period – especially its full touch screen without any qwerty button compared to the trendy Blackberry smartphones around that time.
This made the device a bit polarizing especially for those who have been using BlackBerry smartphones for many years.
The device also lacked Bluetooth and sported a 2MP rear camera with a mixture of aluminum and plastic body.
Ever since then, the device has seen a big improvement with new features and capacities being added every year.
When the iPhone 4 was released a couple of years later, the company introduced a new Retina display, the A4 processor, a better 5MP camera, and LED flash among other cool updates.
Around this time, the iPhone has already cemented its place in the smartphone market alongside the trendy Android-based devices used by devices like the Samsung Galaxy S which as since become its closest rival in the smartphone market.
When the iPhone 5 was released, it was literally the world’s thinnest smartphone with newer features including an 8MP iSight camera.
Then the company introduced other technologies such as the TouchID and FaceID while also building a number of accompanying software services such as the Apple TV+, Spple Music, Arcade, App Store, and so forth.
As at today, Apple has plethora of devices and software services centered around its smartphone which showed how successful the iPhone has been in the smartphone market across the globe.