The iPhone Was Announced Sixteen Years Ago

Every company wants you to believe that their next big product will change the world, but sometimes things do live up to the hype. This was definitely the case 16 years ago, when tech icon Steve Jobs first announced the iPhone.

If you haven't seen the original stage presentation, it's definitely worth a look over on YouTube. Jobs famously begins the announcement by stating that the company is unveiling three new products--a touchscreen iPod, a revolutionary phone, and an internet communicator--before revealing that the iPhone is, in fact, all three in one device.

Though the buttonless interface might seem quaint today, it was considered a major departure from existing phone technology at the time, which usually included entire QWERTY keyboards on the bottom half of the shell. And while the devices have certainly evolved over the years, there's no denying that Jobs and Apple set the aesthetic standard that all future smartphones would follow.

The original iPhone was indeed a revolution, but it didn't quite have everything that we expect in today's phones. For example, the second iPhone was called the "3G"--not the iPhone 2--because it supported that data standard, as well as adding then-killer features such as push email and a GPS. We really have come a long way.