Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone five months earlier by calling it three products in one: a widescreen iPod with touch controls, a revolutionary mobile phone, and a breakthrough internet communicator. The order was telling. The device that went on sale June 29 for $499 was, in its DNA, a pocket computer. Its primary interface was a capacitative multi-touch screen, a departure from every other smartphone's physical keyboard. The phone application was just one icon among many.
Its immediate impact was not market dominance. Nokia and BlackBerry still led. The first iPhone lacked an App Store, copy-paste, and 3G. It mattered because it redefined the category's center of gravity. Apple shifted value from hardware keyboard efficiency to a flexible, software-driven slate. It treated the internet browser as a core experience, not an afterthought.
The common misunderstanding is that Apple invented the smartphone. It did not. Companies like Palm and BlackBerry had built capable devices for years. Apple's synthesis was different. It made the internet usable in a pocket by rejecting the stylus and simplifying the interface to direct manipulation. It also consolidated control, locking the device to a single carrier, AT&T, a controversial model that nonetheless proved consumers would accept walled gardens for superior design.
The lasting impact is the platform it became. The App Store, launched a year later, ignited a global software economy. The iPhone established a new architecture for personal technology, one where the screen is the only instrument and software updates can redefine the device years after purchase. It rendered the digital camera, the portable music player, and the paper map into features, not products.