The first days when iPhone was new, special. 15 years ago, Steve Jobs and Apple developed what could best be described as a hectic beast when launching a product.
First, Jobs introduced the iPhone at Macworld in January 2007, but it was several months before the iPhone was officially launched. Whether by design or by necessity, this delay proved to be the best way to launch what would become a technological and cultural touchstone.
The wait for details of the availability and official launch date was built and built until Apple announced and naturally the technical media reported it.
It turned out that Hype Central is a summer Apple Flagship Store on Fifth Avenue. Although I remember the day of the launch, I don’t remember being present or even passing by. However, reports at the time described a queue that literally ran down the steps of the store and wrapped around the neighborhood. There were media and outside companies trying to overcome this wave of unrest. It was a revelry.
In the old way
Apple has created all this without the benefit of social media. Facebook was only a couple of years old and was mostly used only by college students. Twitter has not captured the general public. There was no Instagram.
It was all built on the traditional hype in the media and word of mouth.
The apple leaned heavily into him. There were store employees who acted as cheerleaders, leading people to sing “When I say‘ I ’, you say‘ iPhone ’.
Scenes from people waited all night (opens in a new tab) (sometimes for days) outside of Apple Stores were repeated across the country.
Why?
Apple and Jobs have spent the past eight years building a commitment to a brand that, one might argue, surpassed at the same time the quality of their products. I don’t see it that way. There has never been a company, technological or otherwise, that has managed to combine exquisite design and industry-leading quality and utilization with a kinship to a brand that has entered into something that is close to a cult.
As one guy said The New York Times in 2007 (opens in a new tab) while he waited online near the Chicago Apple Store for the first iPhone, “If Apple was making sliced ​​bread, yes, I’d buy it.”
Devotion was born from products like iMac,, iBookand iPod. Steve Jobs was the glue that tied it all together. It was hard to find an Apple fanatic who wouldn’t be as devoted to Jobs as his iPod.
Devotion and repetition
After that first launch, I became a regular visitor to the annual launch events, which eventually moved from summer to September or October. For some time the hype did not subside. While launching the iPhone 6s and remember meeting one of the first aspiring iPhone recipients (opens in a new tab)a young woman who came from Lithuania to get a pink device that she still could not buy in her country.
However, by that time the nature of the events had changed. Yes, there were still queues, but they were often filled by professional waiters who bought phones for other people and those who bought for resale. Pre-orders, home delivery and home activation – all have become commonplace – and easier than waiting near an Apple store.
The lines began to shrink, but Apple’s hyperperper team grew and became bolder.
After the Lithuanian took her new, still-packed phone outside, they demanded that she launch it for the crowd. She obeyed and seemed excited, but I thought it was a little forced.
Never the same
Random surges go back to past excitement, such as when Apple introduced iPhone X in 2017. Its radically new look and cut has caused a noise that has not been seen since Jobs. I thought the queue at the Fifth Avenue store was one of the biggest I have seen in recent years (opens in a new tab). I had the phone early, and when I waved it in front of several future iPhone X owners, they noticeably lost consciousness.
Obviously, the pandemic has evaporated this phenomenon for several years, but even before that, I’m not sure that the ranks of iPhone customers were as large as the groups of professional Apple team fans who created the glove for new iPhone owners.
Fifteen years later, Apple’s iPhone still remains a great smartphone, clearly a leader in its field, but the bubble of excitement that Apple and Steve Jobs nurtured and grew has noticeably dropped. We still love devices and buy them by the millions, but this cultural moment is gone.
I look forward to the next product that can cause such thrills.
https://www.techradar.com/news/apple-iphone-is-officially-15-it-was-cooler-when-it-was-a-baby/
