You can’t imagine how giant the first iPhone was

To understand the magnitude of first iPhone, we must look at the smartphone landscape around the time of its release. If we simply compare the original iPhone to other smartphones from that, it quickly becomes evident how groundbreaking Apple's concept was. Unfortunately, these days Apple’s vision for the iPhone is nowhere near as bold, but that is a story for another day.

i against the world

The first iPhone wasn't just a step forward; it was a quantum leap, that much needs to be clear. It transformed smartphones from clunky, unwieldy, and perplexing gadgets to sleek, intuitive, and powerful companions. Before the iPhone, smartphones were primarily tools for business professionals, complete with physical keyboards, complicated menus systems, and tiny resistive screens, at best. They were more about function than form, and their user interfaces were a nightmare for anyone who wasn’t a true tech enthusiast.

Consider the 2006 HTC TyTN, a popular smartphone released just a year before the iPhone. The TyTN was a large smartphone featuring a slide-out QWERTY keyboard and a resistive touchscreen that required a stylus to be used with any precision. Windows Mobile, the platform it operated on, looked like a simplified desktop OS rather than something conceived as a mobile-first platform.
Navigating through the menus was basically a chore, and the overall experience was very far from the fluid nature of today’s mobile OS’s. The TyTN is in stark contrast when set against the first iPhone. Just look at both products side by side and consider the immense difference in thinking and vision. It’s like the two come from different planets.

Other smartphones of that age, like the BlackBerry Curve and the Motorola Q, also look almost inappropriate next to the original iPhone. With its renowned physical keyboard and BlackBerry messaging service, the BlackBerry Curve was a  capable device for email, but it simply lacked the fluidity and sheer visual appeal of the iPhone. Meanhwile, the Motorola Q was practical but uninspired. A small screen and a stiff, business-oriented design made it feel outdated even at the time.

These devices were capable, but they were from an era that didn't prioritize holistic user experience like Apple did with the iPhone.

This changes everything!

A fantastic book cover doesn't guarantee a wonderful book. The original iPhone would have never become such a phenomenon on the wings of its extraordinary design alone. So, it offered a revolutionary user experience. It was more than just another phone – it was a powerful mobile computer with a novel operating system that was intuitive, fast, and simple. This was iPhone OS (later renamed to iOS).

The iPhone practically introduced capacitive multi-touch, a revolutionary technology that changed how users interacted with their devices. The iPhone felt alive thanks to innovative, easy gestures like pinching to zoom, swiping to navigate, and tapping to choose.
The smoothness and responsiveness exhibited by the iPhone were also groundbreaking. Apps opened instantly, scrolling was fluid, and the entire experience was designed to be as frictionless as possible. This was a stark contrast to the laggy, slow performance of other smartphones, which often struggled to keep up with even basic tasks. The iPhone was the first smartphone that felt truly fast and responsive, and it set a new standard for performance in the mobile industry.

The 2008 App Store launch was another ground-breaking moment. Users could now download and install a wide selection of apps with just a few taps. This turned the iPhone into a multipurpose gaming and productivity platform. The ease with which users could customize their iPhones with apps was a key factor in the device’s long-term success and cemented its place as a cultural phenomenon.

“5 years ahead of the competition”

Looking back, it's clear that the first iPhone was a giant in more ways than one. It wasn't just an Apple phone – it was a new way of thinking about what a phone could be.

From its revolutionary design to its groundbreaking functionality, the iPhone set a new standard for the entire industry and eventually, over the years that followed, changed the way we live and work. When announcing the original, Steve Jobs said his creation was 5 years ahead of the competition. By my humble estimations, this projection was about right. It took years for Android to get developed and mature to a level that allowed a similarly fluent overall experience.

I’m writing this article mere hours before Tim Cook and team take the stage to introduce the iPhone 16 series. Products that, by all expectations, will at best slightly iterate on what we already have. They will be superb, but safe products. That’s OK. Not every year needs to bring radical changes and improvements. But we sure are getting hungry for some radical innovation, for the next smartphone paradigm, and the fact is we’ll need Apple to participate if we want to see a sweeping change across the market. If only for the clout Cupertino has established.

The original iPhone can be a great source of inspiration, because of the bold, courageous vision that had to push against the grain, against the status quo and against the consensus to come to fruition. This is still the purest example of disruption in our industry, and it apparently takes a Jobs-level controversial figure to make it happen. Let’s see where the next big thing is going to come from.