“Smartphones are our constant companions. For many of us, their glowing screens are a ubiquitous presence, drawing us in with endless diversions, like the warm ping of social approval delivered in the forms of likes and retweets, and the algorithmically amplified outrage of the latest “breaking” news or controversy. They’re in our hands, as soon as we wake, and command our attention until the final moments before we fall asleep,” Cal Newport writes for The new York Times. “Steve Jobs would not approve.”
“In 2007, Mr. Jobs took the stage at the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco and introduced the world to the iPhone,” Newport writes. “If you watch the full speech, you’ll be surprised by how he imagined our relationship with this iconic invention, because this vision is so different from the way most of us use these devices now.”
“He doesn’t dedicate any significant time to discussing the phone’s internet connectivity features until more than 30 minutes into the address,” Newport writes. “The presentation confirms that Mr. Jobs envisioned a simpler and more constrained iPhone experience than the one we actually have over a decade later… The minimalist vision for the iPhone he offered in 2007 is unrecognizable today — and that’s a shame.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: No, Steve Jobs never wanted to create a bunch of “iPhone zombies.”
When you’re in a no-smartphone (or a no-Internet) environment, it’s 2006 all over again and, yes, it is magnificent! — MacDailyNews, April 6, 2018
So, put down your iPhone once in a while (and, no, that doesn’t mean picking up your iPad or MacBook!) and stay off Facebook! — MacDailyNews, January 20, 2018
Some people saw what Apple’s iPhone really was and what it really could/would be the day it was unveiled:
Apple really only botched one thing with the iPhone – its name.
Apple’s “iPhone” isn’t really a phone at all. It’s really a small touchscreen Mac OS X computer, a Mac nano tablet, if you will. Here’s how misnamed the iPhone is: Some people are complaining that Jobs didn’t spend enough time on the Mac in his keynote! Folks, iPhone is not only a Mac, it’s the most radical new Mac in years! What’s to stop Apple from making a 12-inch model (and larger, and smaller) one of these days (use the headset for the phone, please) and calling it a Mac tablet?
It has an iPod built in, yes, so it can be used solely as a “true video widescreen iPod,” if that’s what you want… But, the main thing about the “iPhone” is that it’s really a pocket Mac. It has email, SMS, full-featured Web browsing, and much more. But, beyond that, it is a platform that’s just sitting there waiting for Apple to sell software for it. Just imagine games with the large multi-touch display and the built-in accelerometer!
Imagine all of the other software possibilities, too…
Maybe Apple named it iPhone because of all of the free publicity and buzz that name has already garnered. Maybe they want this trojan horse to slip into the market first under the guise of being the best smartphone available and they’ll exploit its capabilities as a full-fledged platform later. Perhaps it’s easier to explain and sell as a phone first. It probably would have been even easier to just have called it iPod (6G) and listed “iPhone” as a new iPod feature – that’s how they sold video, right?
So, yeah, it can be a phone, even the very best smartphone, but it’s so much more and holds so much promise that the name “iPhone” hardly does it justice. – SteveJack, MacDailyNews, January 9, 2007
SEE ALSO:
The changes ushered by Apple’s iPhone have been as momentous as those of electricity, telegraph, radio or TV – June 28, 2017
Has Steve Jobs’ iPhone destroyed a generation? – August 3, 2017
Another LaLa land unverifiable bull.. from a worshipers mouth ..
All these conjectures on what he would have or would not …or thought or did not.
You have something to say , say it yourself.. dont talk on behalf of a dead man to bring credence to your own speculations!
He started a revolution, he put full blown internet access, browsing and safari on a phone as a primary feature!!! …. and this is where we are now, Period. With the good and the bad. !
I recall early on someone writing that there was one major problem with the iPhone vs. the iPod – you would occasionally find your music listening interrupted by the phone ringing!
That’s all I ever thought I wanted out of my iPhone when I made the plunge about 2 years later – a phone on which I could also listen to music. Now, several phones and a few iPads later, I use my iDevices daily for things not even imagined at that time.
Is that a bad thing? Well, sure, it can be. iZombies are not good for society. They are even worse drivers. And I’m guilty on all of the above. Because it is also a great thing. Steve was so far ahead of his time, and in ways he didn’t even come to realize.
He named it iPhone because he needed a phone. I clearly remember his Keynote. He detailed three new devices. A mobile phone, a touch screen iPod and a mobile internet communicator. Of course it was all one new device.
But the main slide was the number of mobile phones shipped annually around the world. It might have been a billion. I remember him asking, “do you think we can get 1% of that market if we make a great product?” The rest is history. What a great keynote. I doubled up on my stock.
Perhaps we should start thinking of “phone” as a communications device. Not just the two way talking thing invented a century ago. That is what it was and is, a device to communicate with. Now we can communicate in several ways on a device that lets us gives us a choice. When your in a game with someone else you are communicating with them. Not by talking just by conjuring a spell and blasting them. It’s still communicating.
They are beyond just communication …. they are full blown Pocket Computers .
Maybe so, but still not a PC.
iPhone was obviously the simplest, most marketable name.
I always thought it should be called iMobile, because it was more than just a phone, but “mobile phone” isn’t as big a term as “cell phone” in the US.
In human nature, irregardless of whether something is bad or good: if it can be done, it will be, and we have to live with the good or bad results
A perfectly valid definition of Personal:
Personal: Not being required to or to give a crap about what Jobs wanted. It’s personal.
“Motorized carriage” was shorted to “car”, yet people don’t complain about the name “car”. It’s a general concept — same too for iPhone. “Apple Computer Inc.” was renamed “Apple Inc.,” and yet people don’t complain about the company name “Apple” when all Apple does is make computers and software in all its various sizes and form factors. “cc” for “carbon copy” is used at the bottom of formal letters when a copy of a letter is sent to more than one recipient, and yet people don’t complain about the use of “carbon” when actually no carbon is used. A “driveway” is named for where you park your car, and yet people don’t complain about that name. It’s all about meaning and relaying concepts without leaving out the details. Grow up. When I was growing up I would have been forbidden to use any device (let alone an iPhone) while seated at the dinner table, and I complied. “There is a time and place for everything,” I was always told.