Apple iPhone: 10 years down, CEO says the “best is yet to come”

By tech2 News Staff /  09 Jan 2017 , 08:45

Today marks the 10th anniversary of Apple’s iPhone, a device that many consider to be a game changer in the smartphone space. While the iPhone has changed a lot in the past ten years, Apple CEO Tim Cook on the occassion of the iPhone’s 10th anniversary, said that “The best is yet to come.”

Apple commemorated the 10 anniversary of its hero product, by reminiscing about how Steve Jobs introduced the first iPhone to the world, “a widescreen iPod with touch controls, a revolutionary mobile phone and a breakthrough internet communications device.” The company has sold billions of iPhone units since then turning the iPhone into a platform of with its own unique hardware and software services along with integration of other Apple exclusive features.

The company in a presser also mentioned that its iPhone inspired new products like the iPad and the Apple Watch and of course all of those apps that come from a unified iOS App Store.

“iPhone is an essential part of our customers’ lives, and today more than ever it is redefining the way we communicate, entertain, work and live,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “iPhone set the standard for mobile computing in its first decade and we are just getting started. The best is yet to come.”

“It is amazing that from the very first iPhone through to today’s newest iPhone 7 Plus, it has remained the gold standard by which all other smartphones are judged. For many of us, iPhone has become the most essential device in our lives and we love it,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing.

“iPhone is how we make voice and FaceTime calls, how we shoot and share Live Photos and 4K videos, how we listen to streaming music, how we use social media, how we play games, how we get directions and find new places, how we pay for things, how we surf the web, do email, manage our contacts and calendars, how we listen to podcasts, watch TV, movies and sports, and how we manage our fitness and health. iPhone has become all of these things and more. And I believe we are just getting started.”

While it may sound like a pretty picture, the iPhone, Apple’s hero product after the iPod is indeed losing steam. Sales have been slowing down and CEO Tim Cook recently took a pay cut following what was the first sales slump in 15 years. Indeed all eyes are on the special 10 anniversary iPhone (codenamed ‘Ferrari’)that is expected to showcase exotic technologies, which should help Apple keep the sales momentum going till the next year’s iPhone that is expected to be a complete redesign.

Steve Jobs: 5 years later, he is still the greatest innovator of our time

By Sheldon Pinto /  06 Oct 2016 , 19:20

Google just announced the Pixel yesterday and I am pretty sure Steve Jobs would have had plenty to complain about. It was evident even before launch, thanks to the rumours, that Google was going to pull off an iPhone-like device, one that is probably the best, current day example about how having a control on things resulted in a better consumer products.

Jobs was never pro Google and often mocked the search giant for copying his iPhone’s design.

Steve Jobs with the iPhone in 2007. Reuters

“I will spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will spend every penny of Apple’s $40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong,” Jobs said. “I’m going to destroy Android, because it’s a stolen product. I’m willing to go thermonuclear war on this.”

Yes, that’s how much he loved Android. But Jobs was no saint either. If you read up Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs, you will also know that the late CEO of Apple did in fact copy from Xerox to build the software we see on the Mac today.

But he had an answer to that as well. “Good artists copy; great artists steal”

So he did have his strange philosophies. The hippie who went on to change the way we interact with computers and mobile devices did get one thing straight, and that was control.

Winding back to Isaacson’s biography it was easy to see how Jobs grew into the greatest visionary of our time. After him the world has yet to find the next big driving force for innovation, an innovator that currently has no replacement or equal.

While his philosophies still live on, Jobs’ ideas have started to dwindle away. We still have the iPhone, it offers the most powerful processor in the smartphone space, but it’s a bit too large and not too thumb-friendly, as Jobs would have preferred it.

Steve Jobs unveiled the Macbook Air from an envelope. Image: Bestpresentations

We have the MacBook Air, that still looks the same as the first one Jobs pulled out of the envelope at its first unveiling on stage. The Mac has transformed drastically, but is still not in everyone’s homes; a Windows PC is.

iPads have grown out of proportion and have not become one