The best moments from 10 years of iPhone launches - our top memories
When I say "i", you say "Phone"
We’re just days away from the iPhone 8 launch, and to tide us over until the big reveal (it’s September 12, by the way) we’ve been revisiting the old iPhone launches, events and talking points.
There have been plenty of high, low, and middling moments, plus some rather special, and greatly entertaining snapshots along the way.
Everyone has their favorite, from “one more thing” to “Scarf Guy” to the soft, dulcet tones of any glossy promo video voiced by Jony Ive - so we’ve asked around the office to compile TechRadar’s ultimate iPhone moments.
Have we missed your favorite? Tweet us @techradar to jog our memories!
Guys, please. Pretty please. Pretty please with a cherry on top
Gareth Beavis, Phones & Wearables Global Editor
What: Steve Jobs asked everyone in the room to turn off Wi-Fi
When: iPhone 4 launch, June 2010
The iPhone 4 was a watershed moment for Apple, where it boosted the iPhone into a really premium model. The fourth iPhone brought video calling for the first time… but there was a problem.
The Wi-Fi in the venue - a perennial problem for any liveblogging journalist - was dropping out so badly that the video calling demo didn’t work because so many devices were flying around at the frequency the iPhone was trying to use.
This led to Steve Jobs essentially telling journalists ‘if you want to see the demo, you gotta stop blogging’ - a command which enough people apparently listened to.
It’s impossible to imagine any brand telling a room of journalists to stop covering its product… but that’s what happened when Jobs got all headmasterly.
Three devices in one!
Matt Swider, Senior Mobile US Editor
What: Steve Jobs teased the original iPhone as three devices
When: iPhone launch, January 2007
The iPhone 8 marks the 10th anniversary of the original iPhone launch, and back in 2007 Steve Jobs masterfully introduced it as three different products.
"Today we’re introducing three revolutionary products of this class," he said, referring to how the Macintosh changed personal computing and the iPod changes the way we listen to music.
"The first is a widescreen iPod with touch controls. The second is a revolutionary mobile phone. The third is a breakthrough internet communications devices.
“An iPod, a phone, and an internet communicator. An iPod, a phone… Are you getting it? These are not three separate devices, this is one device, and we are calling it iPhone."
The iPhone was born.
It's just so majestic (credit: The Verge)
John McCann, Phones & Wearables UK Editor
What: Scarf Guy!
When: iPhone 6 launch, September 2014
Who remembers Scarf Guy? Oh boy, did the internet go wild for Scarf Guy for a couple of hours during the iPhone 6 launch.
The man in question is actually Tommy Krul, an employee of game developers Super Evil Megacorp who took to the stage to demo the firm’s new game at the iPhone 6 launch, but it wasn’t the impressive graphics running on Apple’s latest hardware that grabbed people’s attention. Oh no.
Tommy had taken the over-sized garment to heart with the purple scarf (some would argue it’s technically a snood) he had delicately selected to sport during his 15 seconds of fame, and it was an instant viral hit.
Tommy Krul, we salute you.
U2 for all! (but not for long)
James Peckham, Phones & Wearables UK Writer
What: U2 become mandatory listening
When: iPhone 6 launch, September 2014
The same year as Mr Krul became an iPhone launch sensation, one of the world’s biggest music stars took to the stage with Tim Cook too.
Bono, The Edge, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jr all walked out on stage after the iPhone 6 was uncovered, played their latest single and revealed that their new album would be forcing its way onto every iPhone and iTunes program across the world.
People were not happy and the resulting fallout resulted in Apple pulling the album from over 500 million iTunes account. Bono even had to personally apologize to everyone who didn’t want U2 clogging up their storage.
Keeping it simple is sometimes the key
Cameron Faulkner, Mobile US Editor
What: The introduction of FaceTime
When: iPhone 4 launch, June 2010
When FaceTime was introduced, I was in the throes of a long distance relationship. And sure, it came at a time when it was easy enough to hop on a computer for a quick video chat.
But when the new app launched, it made video chatting much easier and more personal – removing the difficulty of setting up headsets and being confined to your desktop or making sure your laptop had enough battery.
I could hop on FaceTime while I was in bed or when I was walking to class. I remember turning it on while I was driving just to make the time go by faster.
Though I never thought it’d happen, my girlfriend (now wife) and I became the sappy, sentimental people in the FaceTime promo that we all rolled our eyes at.
FaceTime didn’t reinvent the wheel, but what did do was something that the video chat world was in dire need of. In true Apple fashion, it just worked.
The lack of a jack led to the arrival of AirPods
Jon Porter, UK Home Technology Writer
What: Apple says it has 'courage' for killing off the headphone jack
When: iPhone 7 launch, September 2016
One of the most persistent rumors in the run-up to the launch of the iPhone 7 was that Apple would be dropping the 3.5mm headphone jack that’s been a constant presence in the audio world from the 19th century.
Such a move was never going to be popular with consumers, many of whom have spent hundreds on their ideal pair of headphones over the years.
In typical Apple fashion, rather than try and avoid the incoming shitstorm, the company doubled down on the decision.
"It really comes down to one word," Phil Schiller said as he paced the stage, "Courage."
Ta-da! And for my next trick...
Gerald Lynch, Associate Editor
What: The original iPhone launch!
When: iPhone launch, January 2007
The original, and still the best, right? Ha. No, maybe not – the iPhone has gone from strength to strength over its 10 years of existence, but there’s still something special about that first ever appearance.
It was Jobs at his best, part mega-CEO, part parlour-trick magician, pulling a zillion strings behind the scenes to make sure that the iPhone looked revolutionary, if even in reality the one on show was pretty much still a prototype. In fact, several different handsets were used for different parts of the demo, each tuned to ensure a feature of the iPhone worked as intended.
Even with the smoke and mirrors, it was mind blowing – from pinch-to-zoom to the full-bodied web in the palm of your hand, this wasn’t so much a phone in your pocket, as a portable window to the wider world. The rest is history.
No, you're holding it wrong!
Marc Chacksfield, Global Managing Editor
What: Antennagate
When: 2010 (after the iPhone 4 launch)
Antennagate was such a big deal for Apple that Steve Jobs cut short his holiday in Hawaii to speak at a hastily put-together press conference to lay to rest the problem of the iPhone 4 dropping signal if ‘you’re holding it wrong’.
It’s a bizarre conference, which first pokes fun at the issue by showing a parody song that was doing the rounds at the time.
Then it was down to business, Jobs goes from smiles to serious in seconds as he explains just what the situation is. And boy did he explain.
In 30-something minutes, we got Apple at its most humble. The first slide of the presentation states: We’re Not Perfect. A huge admission from a company that prides itself on premium products that are advertised as just that, perfection.
Then Jobs backtracks slightly, stating “phones aren’t perfect” and goes on to discuss why the industry as a whole has an issue with signal… a problem shared and all that. The conference hammers home the fact it’s not just a problem with iPhones. It shows the same issue with a Blackberry, an HTC and - of course - a Samsung.
Then we were baffled with science.
How Apple has 17 anechoic chambers, plowed $100 million investment into its antenna business and even used 18 PHD scientists to help them figure out how to make the antenna for the iPhone 4. We’re not sure what ever happened to those 18 scientists. We hope they are all okay.
The whole thing was a brilliant passive aggressive response to the problem, where Apple spent 30 seconds admitting it wasn’t perfect then 10 times that explaining that it was still a hell of a lot more perfect than the rest of the industry.
And in the end, the solution boiled down to everyone getting a free bumper for their ‘definitely not broken, all phones have this problem’ iPhone.
To be fair to Apple, it took them just three weeks to confront Antennagate and looking back on it - now we live in a world of exploding phones - the whole thing seems a little tame.
That's not a feature... (credit: UnboxTherapy)
Cat Ellis, Downloads Editor
What: Bendgate
When: September 2014 (after the iPhone 6/6 Plus launch)
Will it bend? That is the question. Apple’s woes continued when owners of the iPhone 6 Plus complained that their shiny new handsets were becoming bent when stored in a pocket.
The iPhone 6 was much thinner than their predecessors (so thin the camera couldn’t be fitted flush with the chassis – a scandal in itself), and at 5.5 inches, the 6 Plus was Apple’s largest device to date. These two facts, combined with the phone’s aluminium construction, seemed to make it more vulnerable to distortion under pressure.
YouTube was soon awash with videos showing users flexing the $749 handset with their bare hands, but Apple refused to back down. In a statement, the company expounded the strength of the phone’s “precision engineered unibody enclosure”, which was reinforced with stainless steel and titanium.
“With normal use a bend in iPhone is extremely rare and through our first six days of sale, a total of nine customers have contacted Apple with a bent iPhone 6 Plus,” it added.
How many celebs can you fit under one roof?
Joe Osborne, Senior Editor
What: That time when every celebrity you could think of was there
When: iPhone 6 launch, September 2014
When Apple launched both the iPhone 6 and Apple Watch in September 2014, it knew that all of the stops must be pulled – seriously, all of them.
This was an iPhone launch attended by the likes of Gwen Stefani, Dr. Dre, Will.i.am, Dr. Oz and even Stephen Fry*. In recent memory, I don’t think we’ve seen more celebrities attend an Apple event at once – oh yeah, and the whole of U2 were there too.
At any rate, it made sense given how massive and important of a phone launch the iPhone 6 was for Apple. Come to think of it, that level of pressure and enormity is familiar to, well, this year’s iPhone launch.
I’m holding out for Sir Ian McKellan dressed as Gandalf, joined by his best bud Sir Patrick Stewart in his Captain Jean-Luc Picard uniform. Now that would move some iPhones!
*Our global phones editor Gareth Beavis was also there, but too humble to consider himself among this storied list.
How did we even survive before Siri?
Emma Boyle, Staff Writer
What: Siri’s grand debut
When: iPhone 4S launch, October 2011
Now you’re almost a joke if your smartphone doesn’t have some kind of integrated voice assistant, but when Apple revealed the iPhone 4S with Siri integration in 2011 it was a big deal.
In a big case of ‘Look Ma, no hands!’ Apple made it that you didn’t need to be holding your phone to perform basic tasks like sending messages or scheduling appointments.
We won’t mull over how painfully drawn-out the surprisingly hands-on hands free process was in Apple’s presentation.
At the time Siri was the height of AI innovation (that contextual understanding and natural language recognition!) but over the years Apple’s assistant has fallen a little behind the competition.
Still, that hasn’t stopped Siri from shirking its gimmick tag and breaking out of the 4S to make itself at home in an even wider array of Apple devices from the iPad to the Apple TV.
It’s no longer our favorite smartphone voice assistant, but it was our first and we’ll never forget it.
