Happy Fourth Birthday, iPhone!
We've already celebrated the 10th birthday of iTunes today; now it's time to remember the birth of another member of the Apple family.
On January 9, 2007, I was one of the lucky folks who was sitting in the chairs at Moscone West in San Francisco, waiting for the Steve Jobs keynote address for Macworld Expo to kick off. The assembled crowd all knew that some sort of Apple phone was going to be announced, and when Jobs finally waved the phone to the crowd, the place went wild. To me, it was one of the most exciting Macworld Expo moments ever, and I actually have a painting by Nitrozac on my wall that commemorates that announcement.
For the rest of the show, people flocked around a single rotating cylindrical case containing a prototype iPhone, and on June 29, 2007 a lot of us stood in lines at our local Apple Stores to actually get one in hand. We're now in the fourth generation of the device, which has redefined how a "smartphone" should look and act. The App Store opened about a year later (July 10, 2008) and has not only spawned a crowd of lookalikes, but was the impetus for the Mac App Store launched this week.
The youngster has had a few stumbles along the way, but the iPhone is still the phone that everyone else emulates. As of the end of September, 2010, over 73.5 million iPhones had been sold -- that number may be well over 100 million by this point.
Check out video of that historic moment we first saw the iPhone four years ago, after the break.
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Source: http://tuaw.com/tag/iphone
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We've already celebrated the 10th birthday of iTunes today; now it's time to remember the birth of another member of the Apple family. On...
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Today is not the iPhone's birthday. Today is day Apple announced it was pregnant. June 29th is it's birthday.
January 10 2011 at 7:12 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply"Over" is preposition. "More than" should be used when writing about amounts.
January 09 2011 at 7:18 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply@IcyFog
"Over is preposition. "More than" should be used when writing about amounts."
What or who is that comment directed at?
What sentence would you correct and how would the corrected language read?
Did you mean: Over is a preposition?
Colloquially, people often use the two terms interchangeably.
This single moment is the event when computing changed forever. The iPhone, it's UI
and touchscreen technology took the rest of the industry 3 years to try to catch up to the Apple iPhone and has made computing cool. Steve's biggest advantage over his competition is he has 100% control over software and hardware.
Four years since this, and Apple are apparently announcing the iPhone for a second carrier in two days time. Perhaps the exclusivity with AT&T was actually four years, rather than the five everyone believed. Or perhaps it was shortened by one year, precisely. Either way, the timing is interesting, I think.
January 09 2011 at 5:40 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyI got my first generation iPhone in November of 2007. I was very skeptical of its capabilities, especially being used to a Blackberry, but I took the plunge. I was also not interested in accessing the internet through a phone, until the iPhone. Since then, I have only purchased and used the iPhone (every model except the 3GS) and I will not switch to another hardware maker or OS, I am happy with my iPhone. I also own four Macs (will purchase two more this year), two Apple TV's (first gen and number 2), one Time Capsule (wasn't happy with that, the power supply died) and one iPod Touch (first gen). I appreciate innovation that works, especially when it's coupled with the provision of immense amounts of content for personal consumption.
January 09 2011 at 4:16 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyI was fortunate to be in the audience for the iPhone announcement too. What a moment in history! Most exciting Macworld keynote ever? How about most exciting moment ever!
January 09 2011 at 4:14 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyIf that was the most exciting moment of your life ever, you really need to get out more.
January 09 2011 at 7:19 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyFunny how they really did release 3 different devices, widescreen iPod? iPod Touch, Revolutionary Mobile Phone? iPhone. Breakthrough Internet communicator? iPad.
January 09 2011 at 4:01 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyWow, still get chills watching that.
And thanks for the Nitrozac shout-out! :-D
Funny.... I just watched that keynote last night on my Apple TV. I was feeling nostalgic.
January 09 2011 at 3:51 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyAmazing how right he was in that video. A revolutionary product indeed.
January 09 2011 at 3:38 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyHA it is funny to me how it was actually cool four years ago, now it is all Android and the iPhone is on a sharp decline :D
Nicolas Wiggins
agrstech.com
Android Correspondent.
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TUAW (or The Unofficial Apple Weblog) is a website devoted to tips, reviews, news, analysis and opinion on everything Apple.
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