There is a saying in classical music history that there are three periods of classical music. Before Beethoven, Beethoven, and after Beethoven. Using that analogy we could say there are three periods of mobile phone history. Before the iPhone, the iPhone, and after the iPhone. Ten years ago, on the 9th of January 2007, Steve Jobs introduced this new generation of smartphones and the mobile phone industry was never the same.
Prior to the Jobs’ announcement, there had been speculation and rumours that Apple was going to introduce a phone. Having made the iPod Touch, people wondered why not add phone functionality. When Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone in his famous 2007 presentation, it was inevitable that the world of mobile phones was changing. The presentation by Jobs that morning in San Francisco was one of his greatest. After introducing three products, a widescreen iPod with touch controls, a revolutionary phone and a breakthrough Internet communicator, Jobs went on and said: “These are not three separate devices. This is one device. And we are calling it iPhone. Today Apple is going to reinvent the phone.”
He was right. Apple did reinvent the phone. The mobile phone was taken to a new level. The whole telecommunication industry went into shock and rushed to bring touch screen phones to the market. To complicate things, the mobile industry had their gala conference, Mobile World Congress, in February, only weeks away. As it takes 12-18 months to make a new model, there obviously was no time. So, in panic many mobile phone makers rushed to create concept phones using visual aids.
Today, there are some signs that the glory days of iPhone are behind us. With the new iPhone 7 released in September 2016, the improvements were marginal. The seven was better but no major breakthrough that would cause iPhone 6 users to rush to the store.
You will find more statistics at Statista
Technology evolves in waves. Each wave has slow growth, rapid growth, levelling off, and finally stagnation.
As the smartphone wave is ending the smartphone has never been more important, as the next wave will be built on the smartphone wave.