It seems like iPhones have been around forever and, considering that we spend half of our lives glued to their screens, it’s hard to believe that it’s actually been over a decade since the release of the initial model. Yet it’s true. On 29th June 2007, the very first iPhone was released and our obsession with one of the most important technological inventions of the 21st century began.
Everyone wanted one, everyone saved for one… but what were we really buying into? Here are just six of the functions we now take for granted which weren’t available in 2007. In this blast from the past, you might find yourself taken aback by how basic the original actually was.
Record videos
With your iPhone on hand wherever you go, the old-fashioned camera has become largely obsolete. So you’ll be surprised to realise that back in 2007, you couldn’t even take a video on the hottest smartphone of the moment.
Take selfies
The many selfie queens of Instagram are sure to be shocked by this next revelation: you couldn’t take a selfie either. It took a whopping three years before we were gifted with the amazing iPhone 4 and its innovative front-facing camera. Mirror pictures thankfully became a thing of the past and our photo game increased tenfold as a result.
Snap high-resolution photos
Source: Pixabay
As if it wasn’t bad enough that we were unable to take selfies, the original iPhone didn’t even let us snap good quality photos with its single rear-facing camera. Although today’s iPhone artistry is nigh on indistinguishable from shots captured on high-tech DSLR cameras, a decade ago two megapixels was the absolute limit. They were fuzzy, they were blurred, but we accepted our lot without complaint – how times have changed!
Download apps
Today, our everyday lives are massively enhanced by the prevalence of apps. Fancy dipping your toe back into the dating game? Then Tinder has you covered. Want to check your Facebook notifications or retweets? Sorted. Want to place an order for the best steak in town? Then do it. You could be thousands of miles from home and you’ll still manage to find what you’re looking for, all from your phone.
Not so in 2007. With the App Store only released in July 2008, original iPhone users had to wait over a year to gain access to anything more refined than their calculator.
Copy and paste text
Okay, it sounds like NBD to you but you know when you find a useful bit of information on the internet? Imagine not even being able to copy and paste the URL for future reference? And let’s not get started on writing out a mega-text in your notes only to find you can’t send it as a message. How did we even cope in the iPhone’s younger days?
Store more than 16 gigabytes
Source:Pixabay
It might not seem like the end of the world but those 16-gigabyte limits were seriously hard to live with too. Unless you fancied toting around your iPod as well as your phone, you had a hard choice to make: either a non-existent music library or an empty camera roll. Which would you have picked?
Let’s take a moment to appreciate the evolution of the amazing iPhone. How could we ever be without this gadget again?