Wired
“An iPod, a phone, an internet mobile communicator”: With these famous words, the then Apple CEO and co-founder Steve Jobs introduced the birth of the iPhone 15 years ago. Some of the key figures from the early iPhone development team have spoken out to mark the anniversary, including “the father of the iPod” Tony Fadell. He compared the iPhone to a painkiller in a recent Twitter post.
Co-developer calls iPhone a “pain reliever”
With the iPhone, which officially went on sale on June 29, 2007, Apple revolutionized mobile communications and set the tone in the smartphone world from then on. The key to the success of the Apple phone was the multi-touch display, which features a particularly simple user interface that we all love so much. Apple also heralded the end of the physical keyboard, which hardly any manufacturer now uses in its devices.
Tony Fadell, co-developer of the first three iPhone generations, has now given some background information for the 15th birthday of the Apple smartphone. In a recent Twitter thread, Fadell referred to the iPhone as a “painkiller,” which means something like a painkiller or pain reliever.
2/5 When we were creating the #iPhone– we were solving for a pain. You had to have a phone, #iPod, and computer with you if you wanted to do anything mobile.
Pain = grabbing all that gear and taking with you
Painkiller = iPhone
Superpower = the display pic.twitter.com/h89NfbuKq1
— Tony Fadell (@tfadell) June 29, 2022
This was intended to alleviate the “pain” of having to lug around a phone, an iPod (to listen to music) and a computer every time you were on the move. With its intuitive touch display, the iPhone satisfies the need for a solution that combines the applications mentioned in one device. Nowadays this is taken for granted, but in the past, when cell phones were designed purely for making calls, it was an absolute novelty.
The iPhone is now the world’s best-selling smartphone and regularly takes the top spot in the top 10 smartphone bestseller lists. The iPhone 14, which is in the starting blocks for an autumn release, and the major iOS 16 update, which Apple already presented at this year’s WWDC developer conference, will certainly help to defend its supremacy.
Source: iPhone Tricks