iPhone 10 Year Anniversary – How Smartphones Changed Our Lives

”Today, Apple is going to reinvent the phone.” These were the famous words spoken by Apple’s former CEO Steve Jobs exactly 10 years ago. This was the day Apple launched its first iPhone. And whether you like Apple’s products or not, you can not deny that this revolutionary smartphone changed the mobile industry forever. The world has never been the same after the iPhone hit stores on June 29, 2007.

Source: Genius

In today’s world, nearly everybody owns a Smartphone. Nowadays, these devices are considered a normal piece of equipment in our everyday life. As a matter of fact, you are most likely reading this article on an iPhone or one of its competitor phones running on Android. Many of us do, however, not fully realize how much influence these cell phones had throughout the past 10 years on forming our modern day society.

During the past 24 hours, you have come across plenty of pictures or videos on social media and in the news. Most of these were likely to be shot on an iPhone. At the same time, we’re staying constantly connected to friends and family through messaging and social media networks. Both of which would not be nearly as powerful as they are today without the existence of modern day smartphones. And do you remember the times we were all walking around with digital cameras, car GPS units, and camcorders? Well, there are just some of the product categories that (nearly) disappeared thanks to the invention of the iPhone along with its offspring of other modern Android smartphones.

Today, Apple is the world’s most valuable company. With a net worth of about three-quarters of a trillion dollars, Apple certainly has grown out to be a trendsetter in the mobile gadget industry. All this success can be mostly related back to the launch and success of their first iPhone 10 yeas ago.

With this in mind, let us have a look back at some of the major changes the iPhone brought along throughout its past 10 years in terms of technological and social breakthroughs.

The iPhone introduced us to mobile internet

When the iPhone was first unveiled by Steve Jobs in 2007, he described their latest phone as ‘’a revolutionary mobile phone that will lead to a breakthrough in internet communication’’. Although at the time it seemed to be far fetched, we have to admit that the iPhone actually lived up to Job’s promises.

Source: GottaBeMobile

Even though the iPhone is labeled as a cell phone, it is its mobile internet part that really had the biggest influence on the world. Before the iPhone, people used the browse the web on their PCs or laptops. Having the internet available at any time within your pocket was something nobody could have dreamt of. Nowadays, we could not imagine life without being connected at all times but little people realize that mobile internet really has not been around for that long.

Source: Ericsson – Recode

The chart above shows the unbelievable steady growth that mobile internet has gone through in comparison regular offline voice data. This explosion of mobile internet traffic has mainly be boosted by the iPhone and later Android applications.

iPhone Apps changed our everyday life

Apple’s App Store was first launched in 2008, one year after the launch of their iPhone. At first, their App Store included 500 fun and useful applications. This number has, 10 years later, increased to 2.1 million Applications. Its competitor Google Play has an even larger assortment of around 3.4 million Android based Apps.

So what do we need this many Apps for? Mobile applications have turned our cell phones into literally anything you can imagine. You can use your smartphone for online banking, playing games, streaming movies, and even for dating. Your phone is literally capable of doing anything. Thanks to this, many everyday items such as maps, clocks, cameras, calculators, and flashlights have seen a massive drop in sales. Who could have ever thought that one simple device could have such a big influence on the items we use in our everyday life.

Source: BusinessInsider

Besides replacing everyday items, mobile Apps also influenced the way people work. With the rise of the Smartphone, mobile internet, and GPS – on-demand work really started to boom. On-demand Apps such as Uber and other home delivery applications have created millions of jobs for people all around the world. This number is only expected to grow further with the development of more mobile Applications.

The iPhone turned photography into an everyday activity

Before the launch of the iPhone and other Android smartphones, photography really was considered to be a hobby left aside for those skilled few who had an eye for it. The launch of smartphones did, however, made a drastic change to this.

Source: Trafalgar

Their good cameras along with advanced photo editing applications allowed everybody to carry along a high-end camera at all times. Thanks to this, regular people like you and I were suddenly capable of shooting professional-grade photographs with a device numerous times smaller than a professional camera.

Source: InfoTrends – Recode

After Social Media really kicked off, people found even more reasons to have a camera at their side at all times. The younger generation wishes to share all aspects of their everyday life through social apps such as Twitter, Facebook, and Snapchat. According to InfoTreds (2017), it is estimated that this year 1.2 trillion digital photos will be taken worldwide. Around 85% of all these pictures are expected to be made with a smartphone.

The iPhone has led to today’s massive Android ecosystem

As we have seen by now, the launch of the first iPhone in 2007 has created a big shift in the way people do things. Naturally, other phone companies did not want to be left behind and had to work with their own Operating System. This is how Android came along. Android OS was the world’s answer for other smartphones to compete with Apple’s iOS.

Source: Zenith – Recode

Android phones have led to a massive amount of cheap competition and alternatives to iPhones. Due to this, iPhone sales have dropped drastically throughout the past years. According to Canaccord Genuity (2017), Apple is expected to sell up to 241 million cell phones in 2018.  Its biggest competitor, Samsung, on the other hand, is expected to sell more than 400 million pieces. Although the number of sold devices has dropped, iPhones still are relatively more expensive than Android phones. Thanks to this, the iPhone still has the biggest revenue per phone.