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Here’s How People Reacted To The First iPhone Launch In 2007

Madeline Buxton
January 9, 2017, 5:50 PM
Ten years ago today, Steve Jobs stood on a stage in San Francisco and introduced the world to Apple's first foray into the phone business: the iPhone. YouTube clips of the press conference offer a (now hilarious) trip back in time. "Every once in a while a revolutionary product comes along that changes everything," Jobs tells the crowd, wearing his now-famous black mock turtleneck and jeans. He goes on to say that Apple, creator of the Macintosh in 1984 and the iPod in 2001, is presenting three of these revolutionary products today: "A widescreen iPod with touch controls, a revolutionary mobile phone, and a breakthrough Internet communications device." The crowd goes wild, whistling and cheering, as Jobs lists each of the three. Then, they go even crazier when they realize that he's describing one device, with all three components built in. "We are calling it 'iPhone'," Jobs says. At first, he jokingly shows an iPod with what looks like a rotary dial where the wheel is. Then, he reveals the earliest version of the iPhone as we know it today, with a much smaller touchscreen (see size comparison below), a lower price point (starting at $499), and availability with only one carrier (Cingular). But still, a phone that was, as promised, revolutionary.
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Photo: Courtesy Apple.
You have to wonder — without the iPhone would we have apps like Snapchat and Instagram? Would we be as attached to our phones as we are today? Would we all still be toting around Sidekicks? Well, probably not that last one, but you get the picture. Without iPhones, the world would look at lot different. Part of what makes celebrating a milestone anniversary for a product as successful as the iPhone so much fun is looking back at the earliest reactions to it. The New York Times called it "an innovative cellphone" and marveled that "the user interface relies heavily on a high-resolution touch screen that makes it possible to use a finger to control the phone." A finger! Imagine that. But some of the best reactions can be found on Twitter, which was just under a year old at that point. For the most part, people couldn't keep their cool.
Some people made (inaccurate) predictions.
Some people were just wrong.
And overall, there was a collective "iPhone high" taking over the world:
In the past year alone, some worthy Android competitors, like Google's Pixel Phone, have stepped up to the plate and made people question whether Apple will continue to rule the category it disrupted in 2007. But for all the haters, Apple CEO Tim Cook issued a statement confirming the iPhone's supremacy, “iPhone set the standard for mobile computing in its first decade and we are just getting started. The best is yet to come.” Ten years on, here's looking at you, iPhone. Now, who's ready for the iPhone 8?
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