Snippet: The Best ☇

Thomas Brand looks back on the original iPhone at Egg Freckles:

Only once in my life have I owned the best of anything. That was on June 29th, 2007, the first day the original iPhone went on sale. Purchasing an 8 GB iPhone in 2007 meant I owned the very best mobile phone money could buy. In 2007 the iPhone was in a league of its own…

…Owning an iPhone was a point of interest in 2007. Everybody wanted to see the one-button wonder-phone with the large glass display, if only to witness its innovative multitouch interface for themselves. Strangers would stop you on the street just to have a look. That being said, there is not much you could do with a first generation iPhone back in 2007 once the novelty of pinching, flicking, and zooming wore thin.

I didn’t join the iOS party until a few years later (by way of an iPod touch and later an iPhone), but I remember the 2007 launch and the months that followed. Just about everyone I knew who was a Mac/iPod user was at least interested, and even the biggest Apple haters were at least curious. By now, just about everyone I know has an iPhone, or something inspired by the iPhone, with one or two lone BlackBerry holdouts.

It’s also interesting to think of how complicated and capable the iPhone has become in the past five years. In 2007, the first iPhone users only had a few things to worry about (settings, what web apps to add on the home screen, data and text usage), while someone joining iOS today has to get accustomed to the device itself, but then the App Store, iCloud, Passbook, Newsstand, social media integration, and around twice as many settings. I’m not saying that it’s a bad thing, but it may be a bit refreshing to kick it a little more stock for a change.