Remembering The First iPhone Announcement Steve Jobs’ presentations had always been special. Not only was Apple always bound to unveil an exciting innovation (successful or not), but #SteveJobs was a master of presentation. He would practice for days on end like a theatre performance, providing a stark contrast to the awkward style of other tech moguls. However, as much of a visionary as Jobs was, neither he (nor the audience) predicted how transformative the #iPhone would be. The set up of the 2007 keynote had been disastrous - the prototype constantly crashed, so Jobs had a ‘golden path’ that avoided faults. In the audience, the engineers got blackout drunk to escape their nerves, having endured tense meetings and screaming matches for weeks. The presentation was Apple at the peak of their competitive spirit, far away from the corporate manners of today. A good portion of the keynote was just Jobs taking direct shots at Microsoft, from exposing an executive by name for stating he’d rather buy #Apple, to mocking the failure of Zune. The iPhone was even introduced by naming and shaming the failures of its competitors, making a touchscreen seem like a more than obvious solution. Although it may now seem clearly revolutionary, many at the time were skeptical of the iPhone’s success; Blackberry and Microsoft laughed at the idea of a ‘smart’ phone without a keyboard. Journalist Rory Cellan-Jones even recalled being criticised for giving “undue prominence to a product launch”. That makes more sense when considering the launch features. There was no copy and paste, GPS, flashlight, front camera, or video functionality. More significantly, it didn’t yet have an App Store, just ‘widgets’ from one developer - future competitor Google. The addictive, lucrative, and world changing potential of mobile social media had yet to be fully unlocked - few foresaw (or cared about) the impact or consequences. Those consequences will forever be tied to the iPhone’s ease of use and touch screen functionality, brokering in a generation of now-universal devices that shape modern life.