Joe Harker
15 years ago today, the very first iPhone was released and the changes that have been made to the smartphone since then have been amazing.
Apple's first big idea was that the screen on a phone should 'take up more of the phone', so why not get rid of the keypad and only have it show up when it was needed?
They also ditched the idea that touch screens needed a stylus to interact with, because why cart around more accessories when everything you need is just a fingertip away?
When it was first released, the iPhone was pretty much just a big screen and a button, and rather than try to reinvent the wheel since then, Apple have focused on improving the design.
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Back in 2007 the iPhone was a revolutionary bit of kit, with its 3.5 inch screen capable of providing a resolution of 320x480.
These days, the latest model - the iPhone 13 Pro Max - has a 6.7 inch screen with a 2778x1284 resolution, making it light years ahead of the original model.
What's really mind blowing is the difference between how powerful each phone is, with the 13 Pro Max having a 3.23GHz processor compared to the much slower original iPhone's 4.12MHz.
While revolutionary back in its heyday, to our modern eyes the 15-year-old phone would probably seem like a very slow relic right now.
On top of all of that, the camera technology has come along in leaps and bounds.
Smartphones getting better and better cameras is one of the main things that killed the digital camera market, and the original iPhone came equipped with a two megapixel camera.
That wasn't bad back in 2007, but considering the latest iPhones come with a 12 megapixel camera that can take all sorts of professional-looking pictures and videos, it really shows how much better they are now.
Newer models of the phone also come with a camera on the front of the phone too, so you can take as many selfies as your heart desires.
Interestingly, the word selfie was almost five years old by the time the original iPhone rolled around.
Plus, any pictures or videos you do take on a new iPhone can be the foundation for all sorts of fun with the apps.
The app store wasn't launched until July 2008, more than a year after the first iPhone was launched, meaning the real potential for the first iPhones took a while to get off the ground.
All that being said, there is one difference between old and new that works in the original iPhone's favour... the original came with a headphone jack. Long before the days of the trusted AirPod!
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