Five years ago today, Apple fanboys and fangirls stood in line in hot anticipation to get their hands on Apple’s iPhone. We had been hearing the rumors for years of this “iPhone”. Personally I thought the rumored name was ridiculous. Shows what I know. The rumors had gotten really strong in late 2006 and I was hoping that I would soon be able to get rid of the Treo 650 that I had been nursing for years, patiently waiting for something better. In January 2007 at the MacWorld Keynote, Steve Jobs showed us what we had been waiting for.
I have attended my fair share of keynotes, but this announcement was different. Everyone went nuts. For those of you that are newer to Apple products, you have to realize the smartphone market was horrible in 2007. Your options were basically a Blackberry, Windows mobile or Palm OS. The Blackberrys back then couldn’t be configured through the handset; you had to do it through a server. Windows on the handset was just as ugly as Windows on the desktop. Then there was Palm, the most Mac friendly option available. Us Mac users knew that if anyone could do a smartphone right, it would be Apple.
Launch day was rough — long lines and activation issues. I think we killed AT&T’s servers. Some people were left for one to three days with an iPhone that couldn’t make a call or send a text. Since you had to activate the iPhone in the store at purchase, it made the already long line more painful. There was also a little pricing snafu. If you bought it within two months of its release date, you paid $200 more. Apple dropped the price and people were outraged. In an attempt to make it better, they gave us original adopters a $100 Apple Store credit.
The first generation of the iPhone was clean and amazing. Quickly though, we wanted more. Where’s the copy and paste? Why can’t we send MMS messages? We wanted developers to make us apps. We wanted additional functionality. We wanted to take this magical phone and make it more. Unfortunately we had to wait a whole year for that. The good news was if you purchased the original iPhone it was a simple software update that brought you all of this functionality.
This day in history changed smartphones forever. It made people try harder. Even if you hate the iPhone, you owe it to Apple for pushing manufacturers to compete in this market.
Thank you Byron Angeles for posting the perfect picture on Instagram (user name byronangelesmd) and tagging it with #macgasm.
Do you want to be a photographer or just play one on the web? Here’s your chance! Tag the beauty shots of your Apple gear with #macgasm on Instagram. Each week we select one lucky participant to be featured on Macgasmagram Friday. Get creative. You just need to have the #macgasm in the comments section of your Instagram photo to qualify. Tune in on Fridays (like you ever miss a post, right?) and see if you have what it takes to be featured. Good luck and happy snapping.
