This should be at the top.

Until that iPhone unveil, no-one had ever seen swipe-to-scroll, now its second nature to at least half the planet.

Video of the 2007 unveil: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vN4U5FqrOdQ

My favorite thing about the iPhone announcement is when Steve shows Cover Flow of album art (at about 18 minutes in your link), which spins around to show a track listing. It was a slick 3D animation on a phone, when most of us were carrying bar or flip phones navigated with stiff arrow keys. Yet the audience reaction is pretty tepid. Already the future seemed ordinary just a few minutes into the announcement!

The original iPhone nailed so much on the first time. The UX was truly ahead of its time: intuitive touchscreen gestures, portrait and landscape modes, a surprisingly usable touchscreen keyboard, and proximity sensor to prevent accidental touches.

Before the iPhone became popular, there was so much variety in phone design like the Juke or Nokia Ngage. Today billions of people use a phone that resembles an iPhone.

I remember thinking that the iPhone wasn’t a big deal and I didn’t really care until I walked into an Apple store and used one. I was blown away. I think we really forget how many things the introduction of the iPhone brought about.

Not even sure why this isn't the top comment.

>Ok, maybe not so much the original 2007 model

It was. Original iPhone was extremely hyped before it was announced in the tech / Apple circles. In case anyone arguing that is a small niche, the same argument could be used for Games as the OP used in examples. It is very rare to see Technology Announcement being used on Front Page newspaper.( Remember that thing we used to buy every day?) And this wasn't just in US alone.

Original iPhone ( 2007 ) was only available in US, and it was very expensive at the time, $499 with contract. And Apple was selling every iPhone as fast as they could make it. And around the world iPhone continue the same strategy of only contract with iPhone. Arguably it wasn't until iPhone 5 before it was readily available , I guess Steve Jobs relented on making iPhone Just in Time before passing away because it could never match the huge demand.

And yes, not only did it lived up to its hype, it was more than anyone could ever imagine.

Although I totally agree, it also ushered in the virtual keyboard. 13 years of using them and I still absolutely hate them.

You obviously never used one before the iPhone! Part of the reason the iPhone was such a revolution was that it had the first decent virtual keyboard.

What pre-iPhone devices had virtual keyboards? I don't know of any and Googling for them is not turning up much. I could imagine old Windows Phone OSes had some kind of onscreen keyboard which I would guess was pretty bad.

Apple themselves positioned the iPhone against devices with physical keyboards: https://i.imgur.com/hXtRmbG.png

I would argue "decent virtual keyboard" is an oxymoron :)

iPAQ for example.

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/A-typical-on-screen-keyb...

Absolutely the iPhone. Especially the original. Even today I think you could remove every optionally installed "app", and if all it had was a world-class web browser, weather, and the Maps app, be completely indispensable.

What I like about this reply is that I think the best answers are probably the ones you don't immediately think of, as they've changed things so immensely that they're now a component of cultural background noise.

FWIW, I remember my uncle in 2007 trying to game his contract with Verizon just so he could get AT&T and the iPhone. I thought he was being stupid for what I gathered was a useless toy. But now...