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In all fairness, Ballmer seemed to be right back then - the iPhone 1 had tons of problems with very little utility, and outside of fanboy circles was considered

In all fairness, Ballmer seemed to be right back then - the iPhone 1 had tons of problems with very little utility, and outside of fanboy circles was considered more of a joke. Not only was it ridiculously expensive, an unproven concept at the time and married to specific cell phone companies, battery life also was abysmal (they said it was up to a day, but from memory, people had to load their phones every four to six hours if they were doing anything with it. Compare that to the average phone back in 2007, which boasted battery times measured in days (weeks in case of Nokia)). It only really got actually general-public traction after they dropped the lock-in to specific mobile providers and proved that screen typing was feasible.

flantasticle 4y ago
Agree. It wasn’t really until around the iPhone 4 that the iPhone seemed to find its stride, which was released at least three years after this interview. Before that it’d be hard to argue it had greater utility than other high-end smartphones of the day. But what Jobs and Apple had was a longterm vision… And exceptional marketing.
- dagmx 4y ago
  I’d argue it was the iPhone 3G. Cheaper, had an App Store and had the data speeds to combine with that burgeoning app ecosystem. It’s arguably the phone that made GPS navigation popular for everyone, and consuming media on your phone on the go. It kickstarted an entire economy with the App Store. Coming from Symbian UIQ (on a Sony P1), that was night and day. The first iPhone wasn’t that interesting other than the multitouch capabilities for people with high end smartphones. The iPhone 3G made everyone sit up and take notice. You could get apps to do all the stuff you’d buy one off gadgets for , and it was way easier than downloading and installing jar files, hoping they’d support your phone. To me the iPhone 3G was the point where it went from “okay this thing is a weird luxury statement” to “why would you buy any other competing product?” it took quite a while before Android really found it’s footing too. To me the Galaxy S was the first real competitor to the iPhone , partly because Samsung saw what made the iPhone great and honed in on it. It’s the phone that made me switch to Android before switching back eventually to the iPhone X after a string of Android phones getting no updates in Canada, and a huge run of hardware issues with no easy way to deal with them. Come to think of it, my first Galaxy S had to be sent back because an entire SKU had bad memory.
  - laumars 4y ago
    I had an Android G2 (I think it was called) which was one of the first Android handsets and it was brilliant. It already supported everything the iPhone didn’t (apps, copy paste, MMS, etc) plus had a slide out keyboard. I still rate that phone as one of the best handsets I’ve ever owned.
    - dagmx 4y ago
      I think you mean the G1 if you’re talking about having a phone prior to when iOS 3 launched. The thing is that lots of phones had a lot of the iPhone features before the iPhone came out. Heck, a Symbian S90 or UIQ device would have had more features on paper than both early iOS and Android. That’s not what made it unique, and I didn’t really get that till I switched to the iPhone 3G. It’s never been Apple’s MO to just be features on a spec sheet. At the time smartphones were for business people or techies. A ton of buttons and various attempts to hide them (slide out, flip out, etc…) and various attempts to become media devices (ngage). The iPhone (the OG and the 3G) changed all that by being simple. It introduced an easy way to get apps, a giant screen with which to consume content and most importantly, it introduced multitouch+capacitive touch to the masses. It wasn’t the first at any of those but it was the first to put everything in such a streamlined package and pair it with a decent screen. What they did was redefine who smartphones were for. It went from business people and techies to normies in the blink of an eye. There were all screen devices before them (the LG prada) , more feature full phones like the Symbian, Blackberry, Windows CE and Android devices. iPhone killed off all of those that couldn’t get in line with the path it built. I used to be a die hard Android guy, but they really only took off in mass appeal much later. Maybe it was because Symbian and Blackberry devices were dying , but it also coincided with Android offerings simplifying like the iPhone and focusing on streamlined experiences.
      - seba_dos1 4y ago
        > What they did was redefine who smartphones were for. To be honest, I'm not sure why the original iPhone is even considered a smartphone. It was a shiny feature phone disguised as one, so it sure targeted other kinds of audiences than smartphones did back in the day. I remember being excited about rumors since I expected an actual smartphone, but got incredibly disappointed once it was actually announced.
pmontra 4y ago
It was 2G when Europe has been 3G for a while. No copy and paste anywhere, but that wasn't probably a big problem (can't remember.) It was more of a fashion / luxury statement than a useful phone. The incredibly large screen would be very useful for web browsing, but 2G... Remember, no apps on the first ìPhone. Edit: can't remember this too but maybe its 2 Mpx camera was a great one in 2007 (for a phone.) After all the view finder was unprecedented in size and it had wifi to download (or usb through iTunes?). No video recording, no selfie camera.
- seba_dos1 4y ago
  > can't remember this too but maybe its 2 Mpx camera was a great one in 2007 (for a phone.) It was comparable to what mid-end smartphones offered in 2007, like Nokia N75. Higher-end ones, like Nokia N95, already offered 5MP cameras with ~3" screens.
padjo 4y ago
That’s not my memory of it at all. I remember it feeling like something from the future. The massive screen, the accelerometer, the light and proximity sensors and the overall slickness of the UI were really clearly a step change. I didn’t quite realise at the time that it was a whole new device category that would essentially eliminate all other personal electronics but I remember it being clear that this was more than just another gadget, definitely not a joke!
- seba_dos1 4y ago
  These kinds of sensors were the norm on smartphones already. Even Openmoko phones had them (and Neo1973 was announced before the first iPhone was), those were touchscreen-only too. Nothing the first iPhone did was revolutionary, you couldn't even use those sensors yourself as you couldn't develop apps for it (and there were Symbian games that used accelerometers already). It had some exquisite marketing which tried to place it as a somewhat accessible yet luxury item and they succeeded. Then they pushed with their app store walled garden, and the rest is sad history.
  - _glass 4y ago
    I remember perceiving those phones as a new class of device, OpenMoko and the iPhone. My cousin's laptop broke, and he used his Nokia N810 instead. This last device was the most fascinating for me, doing everything in such a small size. In the same way that even now I feel that my iPhone is more of a laptop substitute than a phone. I remember for my first job interviews opening up my Macbook in Zurich to find the place, with the ubiquitous wifi at that time. Now you would use your phone.
    - laumars 4y ago
      I was doing that years before the iPhone on my PDA. I also used GPS navigation with Google Maps on my feature phone years before the iPhone was released. I’m not dismissing the iPhone as a bad device (I have an iPhone and other Apple hardware) but it certainly wasn’t first to market on any of this stuff. If anything, I’d describe it as a device that popularised the emerging trend rather than defining it.
saurik 4y ago
It also had abysmal support for actual "phone" features... the showstoppers I remember were that it didn't support MMS--so no group text messages, which definitely made it feel like a "joke" given how many people I know relied on text messages (and no photos, though the phone I was using at the time didn't support that either)--and it didn't support any kind of ring tone groups, both of which being features that essentially all other competing phones (including Nokia brick phones) had supported for a long time. And that it didn't come with even a single game--even something as silly or stupid as snake--with no capability of installing a game felt somewhat ridiculously "Apple".

flantasticle 4y ago

Agree. It wasn’t really until around the iPhone 4 that the iPhone seemed to find its stride, which was released at least three years after this interview. Before that it’d be hard to argue it had greater utility than other high-end smartphones of the day. But what Jobs and Apple had was a longterm vision… And exceptional marketing.

dagmx 4y ago
I’d argue it was the iPhone 3G. Cheaper, had an App Store and had the data speeds to combine with that burgeoning app ecosystem. It’s arguably the phone that made GPS navigation popular for everyone, and consuming media on your phone on the go. It kickstarted an entire economy with the App Store. Coming from Symbian UIQ (on a Sony P1), that was night and day. The first iPhone wasn’t that interesting other than the multitouch capabilities for people with high end smartphones. The iPhone 3G made everyone sit up and take notice. You could get apps to do all the stuff you’d buy one off gadgets for , and it was way easier than downloading and installing jar files, hoping they’d support your phone. To me the iPhone 3G was the point where it went from “okay this thing is a weird luxury statement” to “why would you buy any other competing product?” it took quite a while before Android really found it’s footing too. To me the Galaxy S was the first real competitor to the iPhone , partly because Samsung saw what made the iPhone great and honed in on it. It’s the phone that made me switch to Android before switching back eventually to the iPhone X after a string of Android phones getting no updates in Canada, and a huge run of hardware issues with no easy way to deal with them. Come to think of it, my first Galaxy S had to be sent back because an entire SKU had bad memory.
- laumars 4y ago
  I had an Android G2 (I think it was called) which was one of the first Android handsets and it was brilliant. It already supported everything the iPhone didn’t (apps, copy paste, MMS, etc) plus had a slide out keyboard. I still rate that phone as one of the best handsets I’ve ever owned.
  - dagmx 4y ago
    I think you mean the G1 if you’re talking about having a phone prior to when iOS 3 launched. The thing is that lots of phones had a lot of the iPhone features before the iPhone came out. Heck, a Symbian S90 or UIQ device would have had more features on paper than both early iOS and Android. That’s not what made it unique, and I didn’t really get that till I switched to the iPhone 3G. It’s never been Apple’s MO to just be features on a spec sheet. At the time smartphones were for business people or techies. A ton of buttons and various attempts to hide them (slide out, flip out, etc…) and various attempts to become media devices (ngage). The iPhone (the OG and the 3G) changed all that by being simple. It introduced an easy way to get apps, a giant screen with which to consume content and most importantly, it introduced multitouch+capacitive touch to the masses. It wasn’t the first at any of those but it was the first to put everything in such a streamlined package and pair it with a decent screen. What they did was redefine who smartphones were for. It went from business people and techies to normies in the blink of an eye. There were all screen devices before them (the LG prada) , more feature full phones like the Symbian, Blackberry, Windows CE and Android devices. iPhone killed off all of those that couldn’t get in line with the path it built. I used to be a die hard Android guy, but they really only took off in mass appeal much later. Maybe it was because Symbian and Blackberry devices were dying , but it also coincided with Android offerings simplifying like the iPhone and focusing on streamlined experiences.
    - seba_dos1 4y ago
      > What they did was redefine who smartphones were for. To be honest, I'm not sure why the original iPhone is even considered a smartphone. It was a shiny feature phone disguised as one, so it sure targeted other kinds of audiences than smartphones did back in the day. I remember being excited about rumors since I expected an actual smartphone, but got incredibly disappointed once it was actually announced.

pmontra 4y ago

It was 2G when Europe has been 3G for a while. No copy and paste anywhere, but that wasn't probably a big problem (can't remember.) It was more of a fashion / luxury statement than a useful phone. The incredibly large screen would be very useful for web browsing, but 2G... Remember, no apps on the first ìPhone. Edit: can't remember this too but maybe its 2 Mpx camera was a great one in 2007 (for a phone.) After all the view finder was unprecedented in size and it had wifi to download (or usb through iTunes?). No video recording, no selfie camera.

seba_dos1 4y ago
> can't remember this too but maybe its 2 Mpx camera was a great one in 2007 (for a phone.) It was comparable to what mid-end smartphones offered in 2007, like Nokia N75. Higher-end ones, like Nokia N95, already offered 5MP cameras with ~3" screens.

padjo 4y ago

That’s not my memory of it at all. I remember it feeling like something from the future. The massive screen, the accelerometer, the light and proximity sensors and the overall slickness of the UI were really clearly a step change. I didn’t quite realise at the time that it was a whole new device category that would essentially eliminate all other personal electronics but I remember it being clear that this was more than just another gadget, definitely not a joke!

seba_dos1 4y ago
These kinds of sensors were the norm on smartphones already. Even Openmoko phones had them (and Neo1973 was announced before the first iPhone was), those were touchscreen-only too. Nothing the first iPhone did was revolutionary, you couldn't even use those sensors yourself as you couldn't develop apps for it (and there were Symbian games that used accelerometers already). It had some exquisite marketing which tried to place it as a somewhat accessible yet luxury item and they succeeded. Then they pushed with their app store walled garden, and the rest is sad history.
- _glass 4y ago
  I remember perceiving those phones as a new class of device, OpenMoko and the iPhone. My cousin's laptop broke, and he used his Nokia N810 instead. This last device was the most fascinating for me, doing everything in such a small size. In the same way that even now I feel that my iPhone is more of a laptop substitute than a phone. I remember for my first job interviews opening up my Macbook in Zurich to find the place, with the ubiquitous wifi at that time. Now you would use your phone.
  - laumars 4y ago
    I was doing that years before the iPhone on my PDA. I also used GPS navigation with Google Maps on my feature phone years before the iPhone was released. I’m not dismissing the iPhone as a bad device (I have an iPhone and other Apple hardware) but it certainly wasn’t first to market on any of this stuff. If anything, I’d describe it as a device that popularised the emerging trend rather than defining it.

saurik 4y ago

It also had abysmal support for actual "phone" features... the showstoppers I remember were that it didn't support MMS--so no group text messages, which definitely made it feel like a "joke" given how many people I know relied on text messages (and no photos, though the phone I was using at the time didn't support that either)--and it didn't support any kind of ring tone groups, both of which being features that essentially all other competing phones (including Nokia brick phones) had supported for a long time. And that it didn't come with even a single game--even something as silly or stupid as snake--with no capability of installing a game felt somewhat ridiculously "Apple".