10 years of the iPhone: successes, mishaps and an uncertain future
9.1.2017
Translation: machine translated
On 9 January 2007, Apple founder Steve Jobs presented the world with the very first iPhone. It was to have a formative influence on our communication behaviour on the move like no other device. Here are the highs and lows of ten years of the iPhone.
No, Apple didn't invent the smartphone. Apps, multi-touch displays and internet-enabled devices already existed before it. However, it took Steve Jobs' visionary flair to combine everything in one device. One that everyone had to have in one fell swoop.
On 9 January 2007 at the Macworld event in San Francisco, Jobs unveiled the iPhone before the eyes of the world. Compared to today's standards, the small block with its 3.5-inch display and a resolution of 320x450 pixels doesn't look very spectacular. At the time, however, the whole thing was like a revolution, considering that most mobile phones still looked like this:
.
Since then, the small "i" has become the company's trademark. Originally, it should not have been called the iPhone - the naming rights were held by Cisco. However, Apple was able to reach an agreement with Cisco just one month after the iPhone was launched.
Smiled at by the competition
While Apple was celebrating the media's response, the head of its biggest rival company doubted the iPhone's success. Steve Ballmer, Microsoft's CEO at the time, made fun of the fact in an interview that a smartphone that still cost 499 dollars, even with a subsidised mobile contract, was simply too expensive. He also ridiculed the lack of physical buttons. He has since admitted his mistake.
The low blows can't stop the success
The second event was also unpleasant for Apple. Although the fourth iPhone also sold like hot cakes, many customers complained about reception problems. Although Apple quickly made improvements, the phenomenon went down in history as Antenna Gate or "Death Grip". If you gripped the smartphone tightly with your hand, you could watch the reception performance shrink.
A second "-gate" occurred in 2014 with the iPhone 6 Plus. Videos circulated on the internet of iPhones bent in a trouser pocket. "Bendgate" was born. Here too, the outcry was greater than the actual problem. However, the incidents have become more frequent since the death of Apple visionary Steve Jobs in 2011.
Continues to lead despite declining market share
The success is not only due to the user-friendliness, but also to the captivating design, which still has numerous imitators. The best known is probably Samsung. The result was one of the biggest legal disputes in the tech industry between the two rivals, which ended with Samsung having to pay Apple one billion US dollars.
But even without such court cases, the company is swimming in money. Although its market share is getting smaller and smaller worldwide and in Germany, for example, is quite small at 17 per cent compared to the 80 per cent of Android devices. One of the reasons for this is that Apple is able to sell the iPhone at a significantly higher profit and therefore still accounts for a staggering 91 per cent of all profits in the entire smartphone market.
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Philipp Rüegg
Senior Editor
Philipp.Rueegg@digitecgalaxus.chAs a child, I wasn't allowed to have any consoles. It was only with the arrival of the family's 486 PC that the magical world of gaming opened up to me. Today, I'm overcompensating accordingly. Only a lack of time and money prevents me from trying out every game there is and decorating my shelf with rare retro consoles.
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