How the iPhone changed the telecommunications industry

Before the advent of the iPhone, if someone wanted to buy a cell phone, he or she would go to the carrier first. The phone itself — and who made it — didn’t matter as much as the service it ran on. The quality of the network mattered in the early days, and there was pent-up demand for a Verizon iPhone that became available in 2011. As it grew in market share, the iPhone shook up this dynamic, creating high demand for Apple’s iPhone instead of a phone on AT&T or a phone on Verizon.