How Apple Taught the World to Smartphone

This week at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference, the company will release the tenth major version of iOS. Which, thanks to humanity’s slavish devotion to base-10, means it’s high time for a retrospective, a hard look back at the most seminal features. At least, that was the plan. Some days back, I made a Google Doc: The N Ways iOS Changed User Interfaces Forever. (Listicles, we have them!) I shared it with some folks around the office. We added to it, and we took things away. We tracked down versions of every iPhone ever made, turned them on, squinted at their tiny, pixelated screens, and laughed at their lack of push notifications. Things got nostalgic. And then we realized: Yes, iOS, like the hardware on which it runs, has changed a lot. But far more interesting is what hasn’t changed. The most impressive thing about iOS is how much Apple got right on its very first try.