Happy Birthday iPhone
Whether you are an Apple fan or not doesn’t matter. Whether you use an iPhone or an Android, PC or Mac, laptop, tablet or iPad, no one can deny the impact Steve Jobs made on our lives. The joke around the hallways of Apple is there have only been 3 famous apples in the world; Adam and Eve, Newton and Steve Jobs!
What amazes me is how fast we can forget what life was like. I think about when my children ask me questions of my childhood or when we heard stories of our parents, grandparents or other “old-timers”. “When I was young, we didn’t have all this stuff. We had to…” Now people can’t remember phone numbers, passwords, birthdays, anniversaries, meetings, etc… For all the great things this technology has brought us, it also brings some negative too. The fact that we rely on it so much could tell us that ours lives are too full of others things keeping us from remembering truly important things.
I mean it was created to help us communicate better, right? But when you sit in a Starbucks or Panera and look at a table of people; most of the time everyone has their phones to their face. I get it and I love it (sometimes). Sitting in a waiting room, sitting in the airport, sitting at lunch, no matter what you’re doing (or not doing), you can pull out your phone and check the weather, emails, Facebook, social media and never be bored. People at the gym have it strapped to their body like armor! Sometimes I actually see people talking on it.
I’m not sure Steve Jobs ever thought it would go this far, this fast. Although, I guess if he were here today he would tell you, “Yes, I knew it would!”
But when I say it changed our lives and how we do things, think of this.
- Phones used to be heavy and clunky and stationary; not now.
- Cameras were worn around your neck; not so much now
- Remember places like Peaches Records and Tapes, Sam Goody’s?
- How about pagers?
- Games used to be played with cards, or on boards or game stations with costly games
- Credit card payments don’t require a card anymore
- Remember the MP3 players
- Personal Video Players or Voice Recorders
- GPS and Paper maps. I used to have a GPS – not now (although my car has on too)
- Wristwatches used to be worn by everyone almost
- Laptop to check email
It is one of the greatest inventions and when used properly with the correct intentions, it’s hard to think of where we might be headed from here; but just think for a minute of what it was like before the iPhone. Can you remember? The question everyone has now is what’s next? I can only imagine.
