Apple's iPhone Turns 10 (www.bgr.in)
An anonymous reader shares a report: "Every once in a while there is a revolutionary product that comes along, that changes everything," that's how Steve Jobs introduced the first iPhone 10 years ago. To think about it, the iPhone did not have anything that anyone associated with a smartphone. On top of that, it was expensive, you could not share files over Bluetooth, it did not support 3G, it did not have an expandable storage slot and you needed iTunes for everything. But despite that, and to the horror of its rivals, everyone wanted one. Veteran journalist Steven Levy spoke with Phil Schiller, VP of Worldwide Marketing at Apple on the occasion.
I don't know, man. I wasn't a Mac person back when I finally grew tired of all the hacky mp3 player solutions out there, and paid $500 for an iPod that I was HOPING I could make work with my PC back before iTunes was running on Windows. The iPod's form factor and ease of use just ended up making it the best product for me -- enough so that I shoehorned it into a Macless ecosystem and accepted the challenges inherent within.
Rumour says that engineers at Nokia got their hands on an early model, took it to pieces and couldn't stop laughing, saying that that's no way to make a phone, this will never succeed.
They stopped laughing pretty soon though.
I know, for me personally I wonder where I would be without native apps since app development been the main my source of income for these past few years.
I still remember the day they posted on Slashdot that hackers had release the first reversed engineer SDK on jail broken phones and immediately dived in and started coding for it. I actually interviewed at Apple shortly after for unrelated position long before they announced the SDK and remember showing the engineers over lunch a port of MAME I had done. It was kind of surreal when I looked up and saw Steve Jobs across the room getting lunch.
Does anybody here frequently watch Apple product launches? Then give it a try and watch the 10 minute video of Steve Jobs introducing the iPhone. I had never seen that video before. It's such a simple introduction and, nevertheless, with such personality and power... Of course it's just my opinion, but it has humor and it's daring... in a way that it makes the current Apple presentations feel like generic marketing. It's almost a lesson on charisma. Oh boy.
If I clone myself, can I call it a thread?
If a girl winks to us, can I call it a race condition?
So rather than turning this into a flame about how android is better than iOS, how about we focus on how this device clearly changed everything on the mobile space. That without the iPhone and Apple, we would all be likely still be using those awful blackberry devices with mediocre web browsers and apps. Or, even worse, still fully using Flash on the web instead of finally escaping its horrible clutches.
Cmon Slashdot, let's see mostly positive comments for once, because this device did change everything...
RIM was a bunch of greedy bastards who thought they could make money on the professional and BYOD market. they charged you to buy the BES server, the licenses and on the device side you had to buy the expensive data plan to access that BES server
Other devices you have to pay by KILOBYTE
Iphone had the first data plan where they didn't meter you or enforce the professional email access rules
This is a very Slashdotty article, denigrating a product that - like it or not, really was transformative - because it came from Apple.
The iPhone changed cellphones forever, it eliminated the PDA, it ushered in the era of smartphones for the masses who didn't have a business need for one and would have never bought themselves a Blackberry.
The Model T barely had "anything associated with a car" today other than four wheels and a seat, but what we are seeing here is an argument that the Model T wasn't a big deal at all, and really was a crappy product, and not of any historical importance.
Only on /.