It's not just the best-selling gadget ever created: It's probably the most influential one too. Since Steve Jobs announced the iPhone[1] in 2007, Apple has sold more than 1.2 billion of them, creating giant businesses for app developers and accessory makers, and reimagining the way we live. Millions of people use an iPhone as their only computer. And their only camera, GPS, music player, communicator, trip planner, sex finder, and payment tool. It put the world in our pockets.
Before the iPhone, smartphones mostly copied the BlackBerry. After the iPhone, they all copied Apple: Most phones now have big screens, beautiful designs, and ever-improving cameras. And the iPhone Effect goes far beyond smartphones. In order to make so many phones, Apple and its competitors set up huge, whirling supply chains all over the world. Those same manufacturers now make the same parts to power drones, smart-home gadgets, wearables, and self-driving cars. They don't look like your phone, but they might not be here without it.
FUN FACT: The iPhone was nowhere near finished[2] when Jobs announced it. The phone Jobs used in the iPhone introduction was basically one of a kind, and the prototypes Apple was making at the time were so fragile, they couldn't even be shipped from Asia.
Thanks to the iPhone and the apps developed for it, the world has reorganized itself[3] around the smartphone, and a few people have started to wonder what the iPhone hath wrought. They worry that we spend too much time buried in our phones, heads down, ignoring the people and the world around us. The iPhone ushered in a new era of connectedness, where we can access anything and anyone at any time....