What if Apple had never invented the iPhone in 2007?

What if Apple had never invented the iPhone? In this article we outline several scenarios of a life without the iPhone! Spoiler: our lives would be very different.

Congratulations on the iPhone, Apple!

After years of great success with several Macs and iPods, Apple launched the first iPhone in 2007. Although this smartphone was a relatively niche product at the beginning of this decade, it is a huge success today. And soon the iPhone 14 will be presented.

In the context of the iPhone’s 15th anniversary (and the success of Marvel’s multiverse), we try to envision a dystopian future. What if Apple had never invented the iPhone? A tip of the veil: you wouldn’t even read this article. iPhoned would not have existed. Or at least not with its current name.

1. Another company invented a type of iPhone

Okay, we really have to believe in realizing this hypothetical reality. The most obvious is that other manufacturers had run with the concept (as is already happening at full throttle) and that sooner or later a type of smartphone in the form of an iPhone had emerged.

Apple’s iPhone was not the first smartphone invented, but it has taken it to a new level thanks to its innovative software, skeuomorphisms and the App Store. Perhaps the now almost extinct Nokia came up with the idea to design such a smartphone.

A bigger chance is that Google, in collaboration with Samsung and other manufacturers, would be even bigger with Android than it is now. Where Apple makes its own iPhones, Google only makes the operating system available. Any manufacturer can therefore develop Android devices. Apple would then most likely have come up with a comparable phone sooner or later to still participate in the smartphone market. The company would then have been able to rely less on ‘originality’ and ‘innovativeness’. Those are two concepts that Apple is now so famous for.

Another option is that Microsoft’s Windows Phone had filled the gap next to Android. The software (and Nokia’s phones, which have clearly bet on the wrong horse) was launched in 2011 and discontinued in 2019. The system failed in part because the operating systems of Apple and Google had already set the bar very high. It became an expensive mistake for Microsoft.

2. Not a touchscreen, but a keyboard

In scenario 1, we assumed that if Apple had never invented the iPhone, a smartphone manufacturer with a touchscreen would have entered the market. However, it is not so certain yet! The biggest problem in the development of the iPhone’s touchscreen was in fact the virtual keyboard.

Apple says it spent a whole year perfecting this virtual keyboard on a touchscreen. The company did its best to make it as error-prone as possible. In addition, in 2007, Apple showed off the invention of the iPhone ‘multi-touch’. With this, it brought features to a touchscreen phone that you had never seen before. Among other things, ‘pinch to zoom’ and ‘swipe left or right’ come from Apple.

If Apple had never invented this iPhone with the innovative touchscreen, there is a good chance that we are all still working on it ping were on our Blackberry. Initially, the BlackBerry phones were popular among business people, but later also among young people. The full keyboard, in particular, was much nicer than typing on a phone’s number keys, where you had to click three times to enter an ‘i’. T9 did improve on that later on, but it was still not perfect. Do you want to relive these old times? Check the app below.

Presumably, hypothetically, the Blackberry’s screens had gotten bigger and sooner or later the company would come up with a foldable screen. Later, BlackBerry also came with phones that had a touchscreen, but the company was unable to match the earlier success. Apple’s iPhone, among others, had taken over the telephone market.

3. No smartphone at all in our lives

This one is a bit more unlikely. The shrinking chips and the improved computing power of processors paved the way for our mobile friends. Still, there is a chance that the smartphone as we know it today would never have reached our pockets.

That would have had enormous consequences for our daily existence. Think of the fact that we put our entire memory in our phone. From phone numbers to basic facts, from notes to calendar appointments; we look up everything in our iPhone these days. According to some researchers, this could even lead to digital amnesia.

Dating apps like Tinder would never have seen the light of day either. Did you meet your friend? The same goes for entertainment. Apps like Spotify, Netflix and even your banking app may never have existed. Can you imagine what your life would be like without these apps? We would probably rely more and more on our Mac and TV. Maybe even the iPod would still exist. Apple recently removed the last iPod (touch) from its range.

In terms of photography, the iPhone has perhaps brought about the most changes. Where photography used to be more of a hobby for people who could buy a very expensive DSLR camera, it has now become an everyday activity. You now capture reality with the camera in your phone.

Yet we think it was inevitable. The only logical next step on the iPod was the iPhone. Apple could only have dreamed that the phone would turn out so well. Fortunately, today we can enjoy fifteen years of iPhone. And the latest model, the iPhone 14, is now coming soon.

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