superapple4ever
1 HN recommender · recommended in 5 months, 2022–2025
14:01 · 11M views · Dec 3, 2010
Steve Jobs's January 2007 MacWorld keynote segment introducing the original iPhone. He presents it as a widescreen iPod, a phone and an internet communicator in one device.
HN commenters cite it as a model of a clear product reveal and as the source for how Jobs framed the iPhone's three functions and dismissed physical keyboards.
5 comments from Hacker News
Jobs did a great job showing off the first iPhone. iPod + phone + Internet. And of course iPod was 1000 songs in your pocket. This is what made it successful. Not bs. We think about jobs as very head in the clouds and saying things like computer is really like a bicycle, but he was very practical and clear this video
> There's a circus about them that permits them to stomp out history And how do you think they would do that? Apple sometimes uses a bit of hyperbole to describe itself ( [LINK] ), but I don’t think Apple ever claimed "Apple invented the mouse" or they had "the first mp3 player" or "the first smartphone". I also have never met anybody who made such claims, only people saying there are people who make such claims. It also would be weird for them to do so. Their marketing differentiates their products from the competition, and has been doing that for years. The competition sells MP3 players, the iPod was a _music_player_ or just the iPod (look at [LINK] , and count how often Steve says music before he says mp3. [1]); the iPhone an iPod with touch controls, a revolutionary mobile phone, and a breakthrough internet communications device ( this video ), the iPad just the iPad. [1] There’s a claim in hat video that Apple invented FireWire. I think that is mostly correct. They were the driving force there.
Xerox created the GUI, and much of modern computing, but Jobs/Apple certainly deserve credit for the smartphone. Before the iPhone the phone market was primarily "feature phones" - flip phones with a keyboard and a few built-in JavaScript apps. The Blackberry wasn't much different - just a better keyboard with a focus on messaging/business use. The iPhone was quite radical - masterfully presented as an iPod, phone, and internet communications device, before revealing that they were all capabilities of the same device. this video The effect on the phone market was immediate, and turned the market upside down. It was basically the end of Nokia who had been dominant up to that point, and caused everyone else to scrap current plans and go back to the drawing board, realizing that this new pocket-computer smartphone concept, with it's large touch screen interface was obviously the future.
This take is a little ironic. In the original iPhone keynote address [1], Steve Jobs specifically called out physical keyboards as a negative user experience. The advantage of the iPhone is that the entire device could adapt to whatever application you were currently using. That being said I still think you are right. Typing on iOS could be improved. [1]: this video
Yes, Job was very clear it was iPod, Phone, and Internet in one device. this video But the first couple really didn't do much more than that. Other features were rudimentary or missing, even compared to other phones of the day.