On January 9, 2007, Steve Jobs said this near the beginning of the Stevenote where he introduced the original iPhone:
Three things: A widescreen iPod with touch controls, a revolutionary mobile phone, and a breakthrough internet communications device.
An iPod. A phone. And an internet communicator.
An iPod! A phone! Are you getting it?!
These are not three separate devices. This is one device…
Today is the 14th anniversary of that keynote. It caused Google to go back to the drawing board with Android. It led to the redefinition of the mobile phone and the downgrading or demise of the big hardware players of the day (BlackBerry, Motorola, Nokia, and Palm). It changed Microsoft’s trajectory, and brought about the end of Flash. It redefined the boundaries of personal computing and the web. For better and worse, it changed the way we communicate, navigate, “vegetate”, and relate.
Happy anniversary, iPhone!