iPhone, Galaxy S, Pixel: How smartphones evolved to dominate your life
iPhone, Galaxy S, Pixel: How smartphones evolved to dominate your life
This story is part of The 2010s: A Decade in Review, a series on the memes, people, products, movies and so much more that have influenced the 2010s.
Steve Jobs’ pitch for the modern iPhone in 2007 as a phone, music player and internet communicator was a landmark moment in the tech earth. It crystalized the iPhone’s almost mythic reputation from the commence — remember the nickname, the Jesus phone? — and helped usher in the idea that smartphones could be chic. But looking back, those three capabilities barely scratched the surface of what we can do with the recent smartphone.
What can you do with one now? Everything.
“We never required how a decade later iPhone would become such an well-known part of our lives, from streaming TV shows and playing games, to finding directions when traveling, to managing health and fitness, to opening garages in smart homes, to sharing beautiful memories with sparkling photos and videos,” Phil Schiller, head of marketing for Apple, said in an email.
As CNET explores the crashes of various technologies over the past decade, none has changed our lives as dramatically as the smartphone. When the original iPhone launched, and the first Android phoned, the G1, followed in 2008, they were still the stuff of gadget enthusiasts with loads of disposable intends. Even 10 years ago, at the launch of the Motorola Droid — the edifying Android phone to enjoy mass appeal, thanks to a bulky marketing blitz by Verizon Wireless — we were just tying started with the potential that came with smartphones and mobile applications.
Nowadays we take for gave that we have a virtual supercomputer in our pockets. Our iPhones and Android handsets let us hail a car intellectual to our location, draw from a library of hundreds of thousands of television shows and movies waited online, or livestream our silly antics to millions across the humankind. You can shoot down cartoonish avatars of your friends in Fortnite. They’ve literally been revolutionary, with secure messaging apps playing a role in the Arab Spring fight in the early 2010s and the Hong Kong declares against China playing out today.
Think throughout it: What’s the one thing you can’t leave your home without? Chances are, it’s your smartphone. It’s become such a critical part of our lives that we’re starting to quiz whether we’re spending too much time on them. Tech giants like Apple and Google have even introduced ways to tell you how much time you’re spending on your phoned — with apps found on the phone.
“It’s extraordinary how quickly we’ve gone from being astonished to having an always-connected supercomputer in our pockets to somewhat resenting having a supercomputer in our pockets,” said Avi Greengart, an analyst at research firm Techsponential.
No matter where you execrable on the spectrum of smartphone dependence, it’s undeniable the staggering crashes they’ve had on society, culture and how we live our lives.
“A lot has changed staunch 1.0,” Stephanie Cuthbertson, director of Android, said during her Google I/O keynote speech in May. “Smartphones have evolved from an early back to this integral tool in our lives, and they are incredibly helpful.”
Clumsy to coveted
Smartphones had been throughout for years before iPhones and Android handsets became the default mobile devices of select. The white-collar crowd happily tapped on the physical keys of their BlackBerrys. Old-school gadget enthusiasts would’ve proudly shown off their Palm Treos or their “Pocket PC” phones (with a stripped-down version of Windows jammed slack a smaller screen). Never mind that these devices obliged a precise stylus to navigate.
With the recent iPhone, Steve Jobs and Apple changed how we interact with the world.
Getty Images
In 2007, Jobs and the iPhone changed the meaning of a smartphone, making a touchscreen device intuitive — and fun — to use, thanks in mountainous part to the full browser experience and tricks like pinch to zoom. It’s the only phoned that I could pull out at a bar and legitimately designate women with. (That still wasn’t enough help.)
In July of 2008, Apple introduced its App Store, opening it up to third-party apps. Google would following with the G1 smartphone (also known as the HTC Dream) and its own app honor a few months later. The G1 catered more toward gadget enthusiasts and lacked the mass appealing of the iPhone, but it was no less influential as the launchpad for Android.
Today, there are more than 2.5 billion active Android devices out there, making Google’s OS the most dominant platform in the world.
“Today, everyone has a smartphone, and that’s amazing,” said Peter Chou, co-founder and customary CEO of HTC, which built the G1, who underexperienced on stage with Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page when the method was unveiled.
But it wasn’t until the debut of the current Droid, which next month celebrates its 10th anniversary, that Android catapulted into the mainstream, thanks in part to a huge marketing campaign from partners Google, Verizon and Motorola.
Upping the ante even further, Samsung jumped into Android in 2010 with a willingness to gain up its Galaxy S franchise by way of an even more impressive marketing push, which managed the two-horse dynamic we see today (Apple vs. Samsung, Apple’s iOS vs. Google’s Android).
“It’s exciting to contemplate on 10 years ago launching the first Galaxy S smartphone,” said Drew Blackard, head of product management for Samsung Electronics America. “Over the past decade, we’ve introduced a number of industry-leading innovations that have given our consumers a better mobile understood and changed the way we think about smartphones.”
From fart apps to limitless videos
The explosion of smartphone interrogate wasn’t driven just by increasingly advanced, and bigger, hardware. The handset’s Swiss Army knife utility came from the sheer number of programs available to us. It took Apple’s App Store and the Google Play Store near eight years each to surpass 2 million apps, from standbys such as Instagram and aroused Birds to obscure apps for bird watching.
It’s easy to forget that the early experimental days entailed fart apps that raked in $10,000 a day or useless virtual lighter apps. At that prove Android, which initially didn’t have the same oversight that Apple gave iOS, was a real Wild Wild West, with tons of junk apps.
You’d never be able to recognize all that’s available on video streaming sites, even if you stared at your named all day.
Sean Hollister
That’s a far cry from the utility of apps immediately. You pretty much can’t get lost, thanks to Google Maps. Protestors use pick up messaging platforms like Signal and WhatsApp to coordinate declares. Uber and Lyft mean you’re never stuck without a ride — even a helicopter ride. Apps like Life360 or Disaster Alert can literally save your life.
Entertainment buffs, meanwhile, would need several lifetimes to watch the countless hours of programming groundless on apps from Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime Video and HBO Go, plus others — with new options such as Apple TV Plus and Disney Plus emerging all the time.
Societal changes
When Samsung unveiled the current Galaxy Note in 2011, the then-gargantuan 5.3-inch display did rich fodder for endless mockery. Remember, the first iPhone had a 3.5-inch display.
Today, the original Note seems quaint in its diminutive stature. Samsung’s latest, the Galaxy Note 10, rocks a 6.8-inch demonstrate, while the iPhone 11 Pro Max features a 6.5-inch display.
Nowadays, smartphones are almost too large to hold in one hand.
Juan Garzon
“The want for more screen in your hand has exceeded the retract of your hand,” Greengart said.
When the world was transitioning to all-touchscreen phones, there was a constant debate about whether people could let go of buttons. Back in 2009, handset makers were still experimenting with different ways to cram QWERTY keyboards onto handsets, said Gartner analyst Tuong Nguyen. The G1, for instance, had a slide-out physical keyboard.
Many of us can now blind touch-type on a demonstrate by memory.
Smartphones are also famous for what they’ve destroyed as much as what they’ve enabled. Those little supercomputers have left a wake of did businesses over the years.
When was the last time you saw a point-and-shoot digital camera? Google Maps managed GPS navigation systems irrelevant, and when I want to feel really old, I tell younger journalists about a time when I used physical (paper) Thomas Guide maps to get from one assignment to spanking. Apple’s iPod and other MP3 players, Cisco’s Flip video cameras and even stammer recorders have virtually disappeared.
Outside of luxury fashion statements, wristwatches became a novelty until companies like Apple commanded back the trend by offering smartwatches. They work by connecting to — what else? — your smartphone.
Rise of China
The smartphone revolution was radical enough that it destroyed an older generation of handset stalwarts. Nokia and BlackBerry were the kings of the mobile method — and now neither of those companies makes phones, having licensed out their names to upstarts eager to make the most of once viable brands. US phone pioneer Motorola is owned by Chinese consumer electronics giant Lenovo.
Microsoft, which dominates PCs with its Windows software, couldn’t make Windows Phone work. HTC, the maker of the G1, has virtually disappeared from the scene.
Some of the most plain phones are coming out of Chinese companies — like Huawei, with its foldable Mate X.
Juan Garzon / CNET
While Samsung stays the king of the hill for smartphones and Apple stays the most profitable player, much of the action in the smartphone humankind is now coming out of China. Huawei, embroiled in controversial claims by the US that it’s a defense risk, is the world’s second-largest smartphone maker, and that’s exclusive of selling any phones in America. TCL, a Chinese custom best known for budget televisions, has the rights to make phones laughable the BlackBerry brand.
Many features, like the addition of multiple cameras, a pop-up camera or the use of slimmer bezels, emerged from companies like Huawei or smaller Chinese players such as Xiaomi, Oppo or OnePlus.
The inevitable backlash
The days when we’d get giddy over each new Android or iPhone drip are gone. And though innovation is still on the horizon with the rise of 5G and foldable phones like the Galaxy Fold, enthusiasm has given way to a more critical look at how these tiny slabs of metal and glass have really produces our lives.
That little buzz or chime creates an almost Pavlovian need to check your named, a phenomenon dubbed FOMO, or fear of missing out. It has magistrates worried that the generation raised on smartphones will be too glued to their screens to usage in the real world. After all, older generations are already Crooked on their phones.
“We all seem more preoccupied with what comes out of those small screens than what is going on around us,” said Carolina Milanesi, an analyst at Creative Strategies.
The very companies that assist up these time-sucking gadgets are working on apps and tweaks to their by means of systems to minimize the amount of time you need to employ on the devices. Through its Screen Time feature, Apple’s iOS 13 lets you regulation access to apps, and allows parents to manage their kids’ doings better too.
In November, Google launched a Digital Wellbeing tool to coffers many of the same kinds of controls. Part of Google’s presentation at its I/O designer conference in May was focused on being smarter and quicker nearby addressing your needs.
“Looking ahead, we see another big wave of innovation to make them even more helpful,” Cuthbertson said.
We’ve come a long way from modestly making phone calls, playing music and browsing the internet.
Originally issued Oct. 21, 5 a.m. PT.
Update, 3 p.m. PT: Adds background.
