The iPhone celebrates 10 years leading the way

Although it may seem that it has been with us a lifetime, the iPhone is only 10 years old. The most popular smartphone in the world and that changed the concept of smartphone celebrates its 8th anniversary amid rumors about how the next iPhone XNUMX will commemorate this event.

No one doubts right now the success of this device, or that it has served to lead the way for other manufacturers who, year after year, launch the «iPhone Killer» shift. But its beginnings were not so successful, and its own creation was a rather tortuous path full of changes that ultimately resulted in the most successful product in history that has led Apple to be the most valuable brand in the world.

Born of hatred for Microsoft

Apple was not working on a touchscreen smartphone but on a tablet. An executive from Microsoft told Steve Jobs about the work they were doing with tablets and the stylus, and Jobs, who hated the stylus as we saw in the presentation of the original iPhone, returned to Apple determined to demonstrate what could be done with a tablet, beginning the development of the iPad.

What was it that made Steve Jobs decide to turn around and start iPhone development? The iPad began to be spawned before the iPhone, however it wasn't released until three years after the first iPhone. This change in strategy was due to the damage that phones could do to iPod sales. since more and more people used them to listen to music. Jobs, who had already seen a demo of the software that Scott Forstall had created for the iPad, asked that they downsize and start working on the iPhone, putting aside the development of the iPad.

 

Motorola Rokr, Apple's first attempt

Despite everything Steve Jobs still had doubts about the new phone. He was not entirely confident that Apple was going to succeed with the phone due to many factors that were beyond its control, one of the main ones being the phone operators. Apple was not used to having to go through the hoop of any other company, and mobile telephony was controlled in the United States by a couple of companies that handled everything at ease. Verizon and AT&T were the ones that controlled which devices accessed their networks, and without them no smartphone was going to succeed.

Perhaps that is why Apple had a first approximation with Motorola, a company that it had already considered acquiring but whose price at that time was too high for the possibilities of those from Cupertino. Motorola was marketing the Razr at the time, a phone with a design that Jobs liked a lot, and the good relations between both companies ended in a Motorola with integrated iTunes player: Rokr. At Apple they knew that this phone was real garbage, but it did its job: allowing Steve Jobs to gather information on how the operators worked.

The iPod was the father of the iPhone

The experience of putting iTunes in a phone of the time helped Apple to know that this was not the way to go. The final product did not like anyone, and what they were clear was that if the iPod had succeeded at that time the way was to turn the iPod into a phone. Mike Bell, who had been with the company for 15 years, persuaded Steve Jobs for months that they had to build a phone without much success, but Jony Ive appeared with his designs.

One night Bell called Jobs to tell him that they were already clear about what Apple's phone was going to be like. Jony Ive had designs for future iPods that no one had seen, and that he was clear that what they had to do was take one of those designs and put the Apple software there, not try to put the software on other people's phones. After a long night Jobs gave free rein to the iPhone project.

A secret project that cost marriages

Thus began the company's most ambitious project to date. The top managers of Apple were aware that they were facing a product that would be key to the growth of the company, in fact Steve Jobs himself in his presentation said that they were facing one of those products that would change history. But it was key that there were no leaks, and for this they had to select the best and most trusted.

Jobs told Forstall that he could choose whichever engineers he wanted within the company, but no one outside of it. They could not risk that it would produce the slightest leak on the company's new product, which began work in 2004 officially. Apple employees now report that they suddenly saw some engineers suddenly disappear from their jobs, not knowing where they had gone. Only a few Apple officials came, they spoke privately with them and suddenly they never returned to their usual job. They were the best, the brightest, but they paid a price.

We are starting a new project so secret that I can't tell you what it is about. I can't tell you who you will work for. The only thing I can tell you is that if you take this job, you are going to work harder than in your entire life. You are going to have to work day and night, even weekends, for at least two years.

Some engineers confirmed after several years that the iPhone cost them their marriage, like Andy Grignon. “It was very intense work, probably the worst time of my life. They took a handful of the best engineers, tasked them with an impossible project, with an unattainable end date, and they were told that the future of the company depended on it. "

A launch with a very warm reception

Apple launched the iPhone in 2007 but the criticism was not too favorable to the terminal. A 2Mpx camera, without 3G connectivity, without a Flash player and with completely limited customization options. You couldn't even change the ringtone or wallpaper! Accustomed to other much more customizable terminals, the iPhone did not convince the most «geeks» of the moment, and added to its high price, nothing seemed to indicate that it was going to be a success. Also, Bluetooth was not used to share files! Its launch was only in the United States and also only with the Cingular operator.

Although the criticism rained down everywhere, many people realized that the iPhone was coming to change the rules of telephony. Just take a look at how mobile phone design evolved after 2007. The physical keyboard, one of the keys to the success of Blackberry terminals, suddenly disappeared from smartphones, and all the manufacturers began to blatantly copy Apple's phone design in their new releases. And those who did not know how to adapt ended up paying dearly for their skepticism, as Steve Ballmer himself (Microsoft CEO at that time) ended up recognizing years later.

Ten years of continuous change with the same spirit

For ten years the iPhone has been changing, both in its design and in its hardware and software. Apple has crossed a lot of red lines that we never would have thought it would do, like larger screens, opening your software to third parties or even launching the iPhone RED. But the essence is the same. Anyone could pick up an iPhone of any generation and could function from minute zero quite acceptably.

Apple has managed to evolve its terminal so that it continues to be the reference to beat, despite the fact that the competition is very tough and manufacturers are increasingly launching better products. During these ten years there have been very controversial decisions, such as the change from the 30-pin Dock connector to the current Lightning, causing many users to have to throw away many of their speakers designed specifically for iPhone. Or more recently, the elimination of the headphone jack by betting on wireless technology as a way of listening to music.

The evolution of the iPhone year by year

• iPhone (2007): first iPhone model.
• iPhone 3G (2008): 3G connectivity comes to the iPhone along with the application store or App Store.
• iPhone 3GS (2009): Apple launches the "S" range with speed improvements without other great news.
• iPhone 4 (2010): The first radical design change of the iPhone arrives, with a steel frame and glass on the front and back. The "Antennagate" makes Apple have to give a bumper to those who complain about the loss of coverage when taking the iPhone with one hand.
• iPhone 4S (2011): same design as iPhone 4, with more power and launches Siri, the first virtual assistant on a mobile phone.
• iPhone 5 (2012): maintains a very similar design but more elongated, taking the screen up to 4 inches, and introduces the Lightning connector eliminating the traditional 30-pin Dock.
• iPhone 5c and 5s (2013): Apple continues its tradition of keeping the design for another year and adds the fingerprint sensor or Touch ID to its new iPhone. Launches a new "recycled" colored iPhone 5c that draws a lot of criticism for not being the cheap iPhone that many thought.
• iPhone 6 and 6 Plus (2014): Apple launches two iPhone models with 4,7 and 5,5-inch screens, causing spectacular sales growth in Asian markets.
• iPhone 6s and 6s Plus, SE (2015): again improvements in power and camera, and introduces new 3D Touch technology for the screen, maintaining the same design. The iPhone SE becomes a bestseller with its good specs and 4-inch screen.
• iPhone 7 and 7 Plus (2016): with a design almost identical to the previous two years, it introduces the double camera in the larger one, eliminates the mechanical start button and eliminates the headphone jack.

From iPhone OS to iOS 10, ten years of evolution

The iPhone would be nothing without its operating system, despite the fact that the beginnings were not easy. The evolution of iOS over the years has been spectacular as anyone can see by simply looking back to realize everything that has changed from the original iPhone to what we have right now.

• iPhone OSIt's what Apple originally called the iPhone operating system, a derivative of OS X, which it shortly after renamed iOS. Yes App Store, no iTunes store and only a handful of native applications.
• iOS 2: a year later the App Store finally arrived and with it the possibility of installing applications from developers designed specifically for the iPhone. "There's an app for this" soon became a repeated phrase. More pages for the main screen, compatibility with documents in Office format, push notifications for Mail, screenshots and the ability to save Safari images on the reel were the main novelties.
• iOS 3: It was one of the most important updates, including many of the features that users have been demanding for a long time, such as the ability to cut, copy and paste or record video. The Messages application, the Compass and Find my iPhone were other new features included. iOS 3.2 was the first version that the iPad brought installed.
• iOS 4: Another great update that FaceTime brought to the iPhone, the ability to create folders to organize applications, iBooks and Game Center. Multitasking finally allowed users to switch applications without having to close the one they were using.
• iOS 5: its main novelty was the Notification Center. It also included new applications such as Kiosk and Reminders, and Apple launched iMessage, its system for sending instant messages through the internet at no cost with your operator.
• iOS 6- Will always be remembered for the launch of the Maps application. Apple abandoned Google Maps and opted for its own navigation solution, with somewhat dire results at first. It was what the job cost Scott Forstall, creator of iOS, who had to leave the company.
• iOS 7: Scott's departure meant the abandonment of "eskeumorfismo" to embrace a style that still lasts. More colorful icons abandoning velvety and wooden backgrounds was a change that not all users welcomed and even today there are still nostalgic people who long for the old style. The Control Center and card multitasking also arrived in this version.
• iOS 8: Conitnuity made it easy to transfer a task from iPhone to Mac and vice versa. Third-party keyboards also came to the App Store, as well as iCloud Drive, to be able to access files in the cloud on your iPhone and Mac.
• iOS 9: Apple Pay arrived, Apple's payment platform that allows you to pay with your iPhone. Night Shift changed the color of your screen at night by eliminating blue tones, improvements in Siri and the News application (which we still expect in many places). 3D Touch allowed creating small shortcuts on the home screen by clicking on the icons.
• iOS 10: Siri finally opened to third-party applications, Photos gained a handful of new functions such as creating memories automatically with your photos, Apple Music changed its design and the Home application appeared for the first time to control HomeKit.

And the evolution continues with iOS 11 this fall, with the new customizable Control Center, the new Files application that is finally a good file explorer for iOS, the new tools for developers like ARKit and artificial intelligence taking its first steps on the iPhone.

Ten Years of Unrivaled Success

The iPhone numbers are so utterly staggering that you can only really give them the value they deserve when you compare them to other well-known products. Have more Barbies dolls been sold than iPhone? The reality is that, although it may seem a lie, no. Not only has the iPhone sold more units worldwide than Mattel's famous blonde doll (1.200 billion vs. 1000 billion), it has also done so in much less time (10 years versus 60 years). Zippo has taken more than 80 years to sell 600 million lighters, and Sony with its PlayStation has only sold a third of Apple with its iPhone in twice as long.

The company has changed a lot since the launch of the iPhone as well. Having a product like that in your catalog makes it inevitable that you completely change your business model. It's like having the best player in the world on your team and pretending not to depend on him to win the titles. In 2006 Apple based its income almost equally on the iPod and Macs. Right now the iPhone accounts for 63,4% of Apple's revenue, and we're talking about billions of dollars a quarter. Macs, classically the company's reference product until the arrival of the iPhone, now only account for 10% of total revenue, and other products that depend on the iPhone, such as AirPods or the Apple Watch, constitute a good part of the benefits of the company today.

If we talk about absolute numbers and not percentages, the numbers are crooked. Sales have increased from 19.000 million in 2006 to 215.000 million in 2016, with benefits that have increased from 1.990 million to more than 45.000 million, currently having a cash of 237.000 million dollars, by 6.390 million in 2006.

Ten years bright but also with shadows

The success of the iPhone during these ten years cannot leave aside that there have also been shadows. Manzana He has made important mistakes during this time, some of which he has managed to solve gracefully, and others not so much. We have already mentioned the fiasco of Maps with iOS 6 or the Antennagate of the iPhone 4, but we can highlight a few other failures of the company at this time.

One of the most talked about and that has marked Apple since then was the reduction in the price of the original iPhone. Launched at a price of $ 600, just two months later Apple made the decision to lower it by $ 200, in a move that it thought would help boost sales of the device and that will be welcomed by buyers. The reality is that the avalanche of emails and calls complaining about the discount from those who had already bought the iPhone was such that Apple made the decision to offer $ 100 gift cards to those who paid the original price. It seems that the absence of sales at Apple has a reason.

Can you imagine what it would mean to leave an iPhone that has not yet been launched in a bar? Well that's what happened to Gray Powell in 2010 with the iPhone 4. When we still didn't know him, he forgot about this prototype in the bar, and it came to Gizmodo for $ 5.000 and, obviously, he did not hesitate to publish detailed images of the terminal six weeks after its launch. Powell was not fired despite what we might imagine, but Jason Chen (editor of Gizmodo) saw his apartment being searched very violently by a special technological crime team that took away abundant computer material. Criticism of Apple was not long in coming, accusing it of having become what it had criticized so much of other companies.

One more sign that human nature is completely unpredictable we have more recently with Apple's decision to include a full U2 album to all iTunes account users. What at first seemed like a gift that no one could refuse became (again) a barrage of criticism when many users suddenly found the album in their music library without them having done anything to download it. Even Bono had to apologize for this fact.

The iPhone 8, the next step

There are only three months left for the presentation of the next iPhone 8. According to rumors, it will be a radical change compared to previous versions, disappearing the iconic start button and with a design in which practically the entire front will be a screen achieving a screen size like that of the iPhone 7 Plus in a device with a size similar to the iPhone 7. Wireless charging, fingerprint sensor integrated into the screen, AMOLED screen, 3D sensors, Augmented reality ... the list of new functions is so long as expected. But the history of every year will repeat itself: love and disappointment in equal parts, although it will be another best-seller.