Cult of Mac teams up with Wired UK for 10 years of iPhone

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Qualcomm patents
A lot has changed since the iPhone made its debut in 2007.
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

iPhone turns 10 The iPhone is turning 10 years old this week and we’re ready to celebrate with more coverage and insight than any Apple fanboy could ever want. Every day through June 29, we’ll be publishing a batch of stories focused on the greatest device Apple’s ever made.

Cult of Mac is collaborating with Wired UK for the 10th anniversary of the iPhone. We’ll run down some of the device’s biggest innovations, failures and what’s in store for the future.

Check out what we’ve written so far:

10 years of iPhone innovation

iPhone evolution GIF
Watch the iPhone evolve!
Image: Cult of Mac

Turn back the clock on the major milestones Apple achieved while developing and fine-tuning the iPhone on its path to global domination.

How Apple turned clunky prototypes into magical devices

iPhone 2G prototype
iPhone 2G prototype
Photo: Jim Abeles/Flickr CC

The iPhone wasn’t always as beautiful and easy to use as we know it to be now. In an excerpt from his latest book, Jony Ive: The Genius Behind Apple’s Greatest Products, Leander Kahney reveals how Apple’s design team created the iPhone.

10 iPhone predictions that were horribly wrong

iPhone predictions from 2007
iPhone predictions from 2007
Image: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

Not everyone was a believer in the iPhone when it was first unveiled by Steve Jobs. Many of Apple’s rivals dismissed the device only to see their businesses go belly up a few years later. Here are some of the worst iPhone predictions from 2007.

10 iPhone failures

iPhone 7 red
iPhone’s rise wasn’t a completely smooth ride.
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

It seems like not a year goes by that Apple doesn’t suffer from some iPhone-related incident that turns into a WaterGate-sized conspiracy. Most of Apple’s problems have been overblown while some should have been prevented. With each mistake the iPhone’s only gotten better though.

Tony Fadell spills the beans on the original iPhone’s creation

Fadell
From the sound of things, Nest CEO Tony Fadell learned quite a bit from working with Steve Jobs.
Photo: Nest

Before going on to create his own company Nest, Tony Fadell worked with Steve Jobs to create the iPod and the iPhone. In an interview discussing the struggles to create a revolutionary device, Fadell revealed that Apple’s engineers took apart dozens of competitors’ smartphones to see how they tick.

What the iPhone will be like in 2027

Original iPhone running iOS 1
A lot has change since 2007.
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

As AI and smart devices start competing for out attention, the dominance of the iPhone may seem in jeopardy in the near future. Wired talked to some of the world’s top tech experts to see what they think the iPhone will look like in 10 years if it’s still around.

Buyers are going crazy for the original iPhone

2G iPhone on eBay
A 2G iPhone never opened and under glass. How much would you pay?
Photo: Discount Depot/eBay

Apple sold fewer original iPhone units than any of the models that followed after it, which makes it something of a collectors item now among the Apple faithful. Even though the original iPhone is too underpowered to keep up in today’s world, people are still spending up to $20,000 on eBay for the chance to own Steve Jobs’ magical creation.

The iPhone’s effect on photography

iPhone photo shoot
Fashion photographer Georges Antoni uses the iPhone 7 Plus on Portrait mode to photograph Margaret Zhang for the June cover story of Elle Australia.
Photo: Bauer Media Australia/YouTube

Photography has never been the same ever since smartphone cameras became ubiquitous. Apple wasn’t the first company to slap a camera on the phone, but it was the first company to combine a good smartphone camera with great software. Now the iPhone is the world’s most popular camera and it doesn’t look like it’ll lost its crown any year soon.

iPhone black market China
China’s black market looks like “an iPhone factory has thrown up all over itself.”
Photo: Brian Merchant/Wired

 

China’s black market can build an iPhone from scratch

You don’t have to visit a Foxconn factory to see an iPhone built from scratch.

Visit China’s black market and you’ll meet traders with the components, tools, and know-how to build you a working handset for a fraction of the price you would pay Apple. The whole process is complete by the time you’ve finished your coffee.

iPhone to blame for insomniac teenagers

Have a teenager who’s always wide-awake at night? Blame their iPhone.

One sleep researcher says that smartphone addiction is proving an additional delay to sleep onset, meaning some kids are only getting six hours of sleep a night. The result is chronic tiredness and poor school performance.

iPhone dark
Is your iPhone keeping you awake at night?
Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac

Tech titans bow down to iPhone’s radical change

Over the past decade, the iPhone has changed pretty much everything, from communication and gaming to the way in which we consume news and pay for our groceries. But how has the device impacted the lives of tech titans?

Find out from Eben Upton, creator of Raspberry Pi; Jimmy Wales, co-founder of Wikipedia; Tony Fadell, founder of Nest and “godfather” of the iPod, and more.

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