One of the most memorable moments of the first iPhone presentation in 2007 was the slide where Steve Jobs showed four popular smartphones of that time: Motorola Q, BlackBerry, Palm Treo, and Nokia E62. The question was asked directly: why do we need a revolutionary interface? The answer was simple—all these devices were burdened with a bunch of buttons that took up space, even when they weren't needed. Each app deserved its own interface, but the keyboard remained unchanged. And what if you come up with a great idea in six months? Add a new button? No, that’s impossible—the buttons are fixed in plastic, nothing can be changed.
And then Apple made a revolution—ditching all the buttons except the most essential ones. How? Instead of buttons, they introduced a touchscreen. Everything you need for any app can be displayed right on that screen. This is how the iPhone was born, and it taught us not to think of a device with calling capabilities as just a phone. Steve Ballmer from Microsoft, by the way, laughed at it back then, saying, "500 dollars for a phone without a keyboard? That’s ridiculous!" But soon, the laughter stopped, and everyone started copying it.
Apple kept only a few buttons for basic functions: volume, power, and the Home button. That’s it. However, when competitors began copying the design, they couldn’t bring themselves to remove the green and red call buttons. They were everywhere—on Android, on BlackBerry. But eventually, those buttons disappeared too, making way for touchscreens.
In reality, the iPhone was never a phone in the traditional sense. The phone function was just one of the apps. Jobs spent a lot of time demonstrating Visual Voicemail, but it was just another app. On the iPhone, the phone was always just another feature. And if you compare the iPhone to the iPod Touch, there’s nothing outwardly that screams “phone,” except perhaps the SIM card slot.
The only thing that has truly grown over time on the iPhone is the camera. Just look at modern models: the camera bump gets bigger every year. And now, with the iPhone 16, Apple has even added a dedicated button for the camera. But this isn’t a revolution, it’s more of a nod to their own concept—the phone has transformed into a content creation device, where the main function is to see.
And if you consider that other players like Meta are actively developing augmented reality technologies, and Mark Zuckerberg predicts that in 10 years we will forget about mobile phones, doesn’t it seem like the next step for Apple is to abandon the "box" we carry in our pockets altogether?
Leadership is more than just giving orders.
There will always be the hard core Apple iPhone customers. They will buy every new phone that comes out. The question is Does the average phone person need all the bells and whistles on their personal phone. If Apple wants to capture more sales, they should look at Corporate businesses. If the phone has the capability to run AI and AI features, businesses pay the $1300.00 or higher price tag. My Android has 32 ram and 256 internal memory. It's more than enough for me. It was free with a plan. Just a thought.