Yesterday, January 9, was the 16th anniversary of the late Steve Jobs showing the iPhone to the world for the first time during the MacWorld event. He invented a new device that combines a phone, iPod and internet browser in one compact body. From the very beginning of its announcement, the iPhone was seen as a device that would change the world because it was different from the cellular phones that existed on the market at the time.
It cannot be denied that the design of mobile phones and the world we live in today may be completely different if the iPhone did not exist. In conjunction with the 16th anniversary of the iPhone, here's a list of 10 innovations in this smartphone that changed the world of mobile phones.
1. 10-finger Touch Screen
Should start with a touch screen because there is not a single smartphone on the market today that does not use it. Before the iPhone, screens of the resistive type were used by mobile phone manufacturers. This type of screen does not detect touch well, the scrolling is not smooth and likes to provide a precise touch so it is used with a stylus.
The iPhone screen can detect up to 10 fingers. The zoom in and out gestures that are now used every day to view photos on phones are all possible thanks to the touch screen technology popularized by the iPhone.
The iPhone's screen is also large (for 2007) allowing it to be used for watching videos better opening the door to the smartphone as the main multimedia player now. The interaction of human fingers and device screens changed shortly after the iPhone went on the market.
2. Operating System Interface
Do you still remember the design of the phone interface before the iPhone? A hamburger menu that overlaps until it's hidden? What about the need to use physical navigation buttons and a ball like the HTC G1? If you remember congratulations because the trauma of using a device with a user-unfriendly interface is still stuck in stone.
If you don't remember, congratulations too because you are all still young and thankful for the iPhone. When the iOS operating system was developed for the iPad and iOS, Steve Job focused on speed and ease of use without reading the manual. Each element should be intuitive supported by easy-to-understand icons. Jobs often requested that actions that required more than three steps be simplified to two when the software was in the testing phase.
A fully customizable touch keyboard? Thank you iPhone. Is skeuomorphic design easy to understand? Thank you iPhone. The majority of the interface design on your smartphone today can be traced back to the original iOS for the 2007 iPhone.
3. Application Store
The app economy on mobile phones will reach over $200 billion by 2022 with hundreds of billions of apps downloaded in the same year. The App Store launched on July 10, 2008 with 500 apps – the original iPhone didn't launch with its own app store – now offers 1.8 million apps accessible at your fingertips. Google Android Market then followed on October 22 of the same year.
Before the iPhone the phrase "app economy" didn't exist at all. But through iPhone and apps, we see many become millionaires through Instagram, WhatsApp, Angry Birds, Flappy Birds, TikTok and Snapchat. Software now rules the world instead of hardware. Who owns software is king in your smartphone.
In the initial stage the application will be launched on the iPhone first because it is the most profitable. If successful then the Android version is offered. The App Store becomes an important ecosystem. Now in 2023 the developers rise up against the App Store as they want the subscription payment to be received in full without paying a cut of up to 30% to Apple.
4. Touch ID and FaceID
The first phone with a built-in fingerprint scanner was the Sagem MC 959 ID from 2000. We're sure 99.999% percent of readers never knew about this fact let alone the existence of the Sagem MC 959 ID. In 2013, the iPhone 5S was launched with Touch ID. The position of Touch ID on the Home button follows other manufacturers such as Samsung, and HTC. Apple did not create this technology but managed to implement it perfectly until it became an industry leader.
Then in 2017 iPhone X was launched with Face ID. Once again started the madness of Android manufacturers offering a more accurate facial scanning system and the use of a large notch on the screen for no reasonable reason. What makes Touch ID and Face ID unique compared to other biometric systems is the integration with the best software and applications that until now have been difficult to match with other manufacturers.
5. Use of eSIM on Smartphones
iPhone also popularized the use of eSIM on smartphones in 2018 through the iPhone XS, XS Max and XR series after this technology was used on the Galaxy Gear S3 watch in 2016. Initially only one eSIM was supported on the iPhone to bring dual-SIM support. But last year iPhone also pioneered the first physical SIM-free smartphone design through the iPhone 14 series sold in the United States.
Throughout this list we see something that Apple started that would later become an industry staple. So it can be predicted that Android smartphones without a physical SIM tray will also be offered in the near future.
6. Kill Adobe Flash
From the beginning Apple refused to support Flash on iPad and iPhone. Steve Jobs gave reasons why he felt this Macromedia (before being bought by Adobe) technology slowed down devices, ate up batteries, created security issues and was inefficient in his famous letter Thoughts on Flash in 2010.
Apple's refusal to support Flash and the introduction of HTML5 hastened the digging of Flash's grave before Adobe itself ended support for it in 2021. Jobs's stubbornness was initially the laughing stock of the industry and became a bullet for Android fans to shoot at the lack of iPhones for more than a decade. But now we're in the year Jobs was right and Flash is an unsuitable format for smartphones.
7. Rose Gold Color
The iPhone was the trend starter and they can also be credited with popularizing the use of unconventional colors on smartphones. In the early stages the iPhone was only offered in black with shiny metal sides. Then in a white warrant before starting to play around with gold. The iPhone 6S series from 2015 started the Rose Gold color trend that other manufacturers followed.
Before that the iPhone 5C proved that smartphones can be offered in cheerful colors like the rainbow in the sky. You could say that the Microsoft Lumia and Nokia N9 devices earlier contributed to this trend but the fact is that the sales of these devices are not as high as the iPhone. On other devices it was seen as niche but it was the iPhone that brought the use of cheerful colors into the mainstream through the iMac computer in the late 90s.
Apple's bold use of unconventional colors opens the door to gradient bezels on Oppo devices, purple on Samsung and leather finishes on Huawei devices. Smartphones don't have to come in boring black and gray colors.
8. Dead Audio Jack
So far we have listed the positives of the iPhone to the industry. But not all iPhone influences are good for users. The audacity of the iPhone 7 to ditch the audio jack was initially laughed at by the industry but Apple being the last to laugh still because it is now commonplace on the majority of Android smartphones as well.
Apple iPhone 7
The reason given by Apple at the time was that in order to provide more space for the battery, the audio jack was sacrificed. We all know the real reason is to sell AirPods to the masses. Modern smartphones are now thicker again due to increasingly large batteries. Maybe we need Apple to bring back the 3.5mm audio jack to force other device manufacturers (except Sony and Asus) to also offer it again on their devices.
9. Dead Removable Battery And SD Card Reader
As above, these are two more iPhone-initiated trends that received derision but are now being heavily biased by other industry players. Just a few years ago a flagship Android device had a removable battery, equipped with a 3.5mm audio jack and memory that could be expanded with an SD card. It can now be counted with one hand of a flagship Android device with the same features.
It's just that in the future the iPhone may need me with the decision of the European Union (EU) which wants to allow users to change the battery on the device more easily. This new law is still in the planning stages but soon iPhones with removable batteries will become a reality. We're sure Apple will find a loophole to avoid following EU directives. We see this as God's gift for popularizing the design without audio jack, non-replaceable battery and no micro SD slot all this time.
10. Satellite Communications
Finally, the iPhone popularized satellite telecommunications support for emergency purposes on smartphones. Starting last year satellite telecommunication support is supported in the United States and several other countries in Europe. Huawei provides the same feature but only in China.
Due to the popularity of this feature, Qualcomm announced Snapdragon Satellite that will be supported by Android devices using Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 this year. In less than a year, the iPhone's unique features were then introduced to other manufacturers' devices.