Tim Harford tells the surprising story of how the iPhone became a truly revolutionary technology.
On 9 January 2007, one of the most influential entrepreneurs on the planet announced something new – a product that was to become the most profitable in history.
It was, of course, the iPhone. There are many ways in which the iPhone has defined the modern economy.
There is the sheer profitability of the thing, of course: there are only two or three companies in the world that make as much money as Apple does from the iPhone alone.
There is the fact that it created a new product category: the smartphone. The iPhone and its imitators represent a product that did not exist 10 years ago but now is an object of desire for most of humanity. There’s the way the iPhone transformed other markets – software, music, and advertising.
But those are just the obvious facts about the iPhone. And when you delve more deeply, the tale is a surprising one. We give credit to Steve Jobs and other leading figures in Apple – his early partner Steve Wozniak, his successor Tim Cook, his visionary designer Sir Jony Ive – but some of the most important actors in this story have been forgotten.
Source: The iPhone at 10: How the smartphone became so smart – BBC News
