01-01-2020, 12:21 AM
https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/i...d-n1102631
I’m not sure when my iPhone became essential to my life, but I’m not alone. In fact, it’s possible to look at the last 10 years as the iPhone decade — when smartphones went mainstream, created billion-dollar corporations, rearranged existing industries and changed the world.
In fact, you might be reading this on an iPhone right now.
The iPhone was first released in 2007, but at the dawn of the decade it was still a relatively niche product, confined to one wireless carrier and targeted at the early technology adopter. Now it’s a much bigger deal — in the first calendar quarter of 2010, Apple sold 8.7 million iPhones. In the first quarter of 2018, Apple sold 47 million iPhones.
Apple sold at least 1.4 billion iPhones during the decade, according to its official sales figures, and probably closer to 1.6 billion after this year’s estimates are added. Apple says over 900 million iPhones are in active use.
Replace everything in your pocket
The iPhone became intertwined in our lives because it replaced so many other devices.
Instead of a personal communicator with your calendar and notes, I use my iPhone. I don’t have an alarm clock anymore. It replaced in-car GPS devices. MP3 players. Flashlights!
“Fifteen years ago, we used the wireless phone to make a call. Today, we use it for everything else. It’s the remote control for our lives,” wireless analyst Jeff Kagan said.
Perhaps the best example of the iPhone’s transformational power is what it did to the camera. Some 109 million pocket cameras were sold in 2010, according to data from the Camera & Imaging Products Association. But in 2018, the last year for which full data is available, only 9 million cameras with built-in lenses were sold.
I’m not sure when my iPhone became essential to my life, but I’m not alone. In fact, it’s possible to look at the last 10 years as the iPhone decade — when smartphones went mainstream, created billion-dollar corporations, rearranged existing industries and changed the world.
In fact, you might be reading this on an iPhone right now.
The iPhone was first released in 2007, but at the dawn of the decade it was still a relatively niche product, confined to one wireless carrier and targeted at the early technology adopter. Now it’s a much bigger deal — in the first calendar quarter of 2010, Apple sold 8.7 million iPhones. In the first quarter of 2018, Apple sold 47 million iPhones.
Apple sold at least 1.4 billion iPhones during the decade, according to its official sales figures, and probably closer to 1.6 billion after this year’s estimates are added. Apple says over 900 million iPhones are in active use.
Replace everything in your pocket
The iPhone became intertwined in our lives because it replaced so many other devices.
Instead of a personal communicator with your calendar and notes, I use my iPhone. I don’t have an alarm clock anymore. It replaced in-car GPS devices. MP3 players. Flashlights!
“Fifteen years ago, we used the wireless phone to make a call. Today, we use it for everything else. It’s the remote control for our lives,” wireless analyst Jeff Kagan said.
Perhaps the best example of the iPhone’s transformational power is what it did to the camera. Some 109 million pocket cameras were sold in 2010, according to data from the Camera & Imaging Products Association. But in 2018, the last year for which full data is available, only 9 million cameras with built-in lenses were sold.
