The Moment That Changed Everything

 

This week marks the 12th anniversary of the introduction of the iPhone (it wasn’t actually released until June of 2007). Is the iPhone the most important invention ever made? It’s definitely the most successful, catapulting Apple from a niche electronics maker to the most valuable company in the world (at least temporarily).

The iPhone is responsible for creating thousands of ancillary businesses (arguably, including this one) and an untold number of jobs. The iPhone changed politics (could Trump have been elected without Twitter?), dating, family dynamics (“son, no texting at the table!”), and made free communication over any distance ubiquitous.

That said, the iPhone has also killed attention spans, made movies and the theater less pleasant, and harmed countless other activities.

So, are we better off or worse due the late Mr. Jobs’ invention? Discuss.

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  1. lowtech redneck Coolidge
    lowtech redneck
    @lowtech redneck

    Clifford A. Brown (View Comment):

    Randy Webster (View Comment):

    I wouldn’t even have a cell phone if my boss didn’t insist. But he’s paying for it, so I don’t mind so much. I enjoyed not being available 24/7 (before he got me the phone).

    Chafing at the electronic leash, eh?

    Logically, if I wanted to talk to somebody, then I would be calling them. :P

    • #61
  2. Randy Webster Inactive
    Randy Webster
    @RandyWebster

    lowtech redneck (View Comment):

    Clifford A. Brown (View Comment):

    Randy Webster (View Comment):

    I wouldn’t even have a cell phone if my boss didn’t insist. But he’s paying for it, so I don’t mind so much. I enjoyed not being available 24/7 (before he got me the phone).

    Chafing at the electronic leash, eh?

    Logically, if I wanted to talk to somebody, then I would be calling them. :P

    Sure.  But I’d control the time and place, and call when I had access to a land line.

    • #62
  3. lowtech redneck Coolidge
    lowtech redneck
    @lowtech redneck

    Randy Webster (View Comment):

    lowtech redneck (View Comment):

    Clifford A. Brown (View Comment):

    Randy Webster (View Comment):

    I wouldn’t even have a cell phone if my boss didn’t insist. But he’s paying for it, so I don’t mind so much. I enjoyed not being available 24/7 (before he got me the phone).

    Chafing at the electronic leash, eh?

    Logically, if I wanted to talk to somebody, then I would be calling them. :P

    Sure. But I’d control the time and place, and call when I had access to a land line.

    Exactly.

    • #63
  4. Joseph Eagar Member
    Joseph Eagar
    @JosephEagar

    Brian Watt (View Comment):

    The great tech burst to productivity was long over by the time the iPhone came around.

    I have no idea what that sentence means. How do you define “tech burst”? How do you define “productivity”? How do you define “toy”? Telephone technology is over 100 years old. The first cell phones were larger than bricks and resembled WWII-era field phones and could do two basic things…make a call and receive a call. Referring to technologically sophisticated devices that fit in the palm of your hand and that have the capabilities that modern smartphones have as ‘toys’ pretty much demonstrates that you either don’t appreciated what you have or don’t understand what you have and what it’s capable of doing. Blackberry and Trio were quickly surpassed in productivity and functionality after the iPhone and its competing models were introduced. It is true that smartphones can’t necessarily make someone smart.

     

    The rate of labor productivity growth fell starting in the mid-70s, rose again in the 90s then started to fall again in the mid-to-late 2000s.  Here’s a graph:

    The blue line is output per hour on a quarterly basis, the orange line is the final value at year’s end.

    You can see a nice bump in productivity starting in the 90s and declining in the 2000s, ending in today’s presently low rate.

     

     

    • #64
  5. Joseph Eagar Member
    Joseph Eagar
    @JosephEagar

    Brian Watt (View Comment):

    It never ceases to amaze me that people don’t appreciate how amazing the technology is that we can put in our pockets. Because of the wireless (Wi-Fi and Bluetooth) capabilities of today’s smartphones and the plethora of new apps that have come to market since iPhone was introduced that can do everything from adjusting the lighting or temperature of your home, program your sprinkler system, activate your home alarm systems, monitor surveillance cameras, provide music to specific rooms or every room in your home, pay for purchases in stores, transact purchases from customers for people who sell products or services out in the field, engage in videoconferencing, stream a video from the phone to a large screen TV via a set top box, shoot, record and transmit high rez photos and videos in real time over social media sites like Facebook and YouTube, provide accurate GPS coordinates to help you navigate just about anywhere in the world, and on and on and on…that people still consider these expanding technological devices as toys.

    Jordan Peterson speaks about this sort of ingratitude when he discusses socialists who endlessly trash capitalism but who wouldn’t for a second give up their smartphones, computers, home entertainment systems, or increasingly computerized cars.

    Pathetic.

    So the tens of millions of people who literally live in fear–every single day–of what the economy is going to do to them and their children should be grateful to capitalism for giving them smartphones and IoT devices? 

    • #65
  6. Brian Watt Inactive
    Brian Watt
    @BrianWatt

    Joseph Eagar (View Comment):

    Brian Watt (View Comment):

    The great tech burst to productivity was long over by the time the iPhone came around.

    I have no idea what that sentence means. How do you define “tech burst”? How do you define “productivity”? How do you define “toy”? Telephone technology is over 100 years old. The first cell phones were larger than bricks and resembled WWII-era field phones and could do two basic things…make a call and receive a call. Referring to technologically sophisticated devices that fit in the palm of your hand and that have the capabilities that modern smartphones have as ‘toys’ pretty much demonstrates that you either don’t appreciated what you have or don’t understand what you have and what it’s capable of doing. Blackberry and Trio were quickly surpassed in productivity and functionality after the iPhone and its competing models were introduced. It is true that smartphones can’t necessarily make someone smart.

     

    The rate of labor productivity growth fell starting in the mid-70s, rose again in the 90s then started to fall again in the mid-to-late 2000s. Here’s a graph:

    The blue line is output per hour on a quarterly basis, the orange line is the final value at year’s end.

    You can see a nice bump in productivity starting in the 90s and declining in the 2000s, ending in today’s presently low rate.

    You must be laboring under the idea that the iPhone was specifically made as a business tool. If so, then the chart above is totally irrelevant and useless…because the iPhone’s attributes extend well beyond whether it’s a useful business tool that enhances productivity…it was a game changer in how people behaved throughout their entire day and what they did with their phones given constantly enhanced features and apps. I think it can be argued quite convincingly that many of those changes in behavior were generally beneficial and in some cases a boon to the economy and a vast improvement to the standard of living; even as other negative behaviors – texting while driving, lack of interaction with others in the same room – became evident…but thanks for playing the game. 

     

     

     

    • #66
  7. Brian Watt Inactive
    Brian Watt
    @BrianWatt

    Joseph Eagar (View Comment):

    Brian Watt (View Comment):

    It never ceases to amaze me that people don’t appreciate how amazing the technology is that we can put in our pockets. Because of the wireless (Wi-Fi and Bluetooth) capabilities of today’s smartphones and the plethora of new apps that have come to market since iPhone was introduced that can do everything from adjusting the lighting or temperature of your home, program your sprinkler system, activate your home alarm systems, monitor surveillance cameras, provide music to specific rooms or every room in your home, pay for purchases in stores, transact purchases from customers for people who sell products or services out in the field, engage in videoconferencing, stream a video from the phone to a large screen TV via a set top box, shoot, record and transmit high rez photos and videos in real time over social media sites like Facebook and YouTube, provide accurate GPS coordinates to help you navigate just about anywhere in the world, and on and on and on…that people still consider these expanding technological devices as toys.

    Jordan Peterson speaks about this sort of ingratitude when he discusses socialists who endlessly trash capitalism but who wouldn’t for a second give up their smartphones, computers, home entertainment systems, or increasingly computerized cars.

    Pathetic.

    So the tens of millions of people who literally live in fear–every single day–of what the economy is going to do to them and their children should be grateful to capitalism for giving them smartphones and IoT devices?

    If you’re ungrateful for advances in technology that help to improve your way of life and lives of millions of others on the planet then you’re either harboring some serious resentment about life in general or resentment about those who want to improve it for others – either way you have some serious issues you may want to deal or get help with. There appears more at play here than simply disdain for Apple products.

    • #67
  8. Joseph Eagar Member
    Joseph Eagar
    @JosephEagar

    Brian Watt (View Comment):

    Joseph Eagar (View Comment):

     

    You must be laboring under the idea that the iPhone was specifically made as a business tool. If so, then the chart above is totally irrelevant and useless…because the iPhone’s attributes extend well beyond whether it’s a useful business tool that enhances productivity…it was a game changer in how people behaved throughout their entire day and what they did with their phones given constantly enhanced features and apps. I think it can be argued quite convincingly that many of those changes in behavior were generally beneficial and in some cases a boon to the economy and a vast improvement to the standard of living; even as other negative behaviors – texting while driving, lack of interaction with others in the same room – became evident…but thanks for playing the game.

    Like I said.  A toy :) Toys for adults are often very useful things; how many guys own lots of neat woodworking equipment and make their own furniture, despite the fact that the same piece of furniture made out of the same materials will often cost more if you make it yourself then if you bought it new?

     

     

     

    • #68
  9. Joseph Eagar Member
    Joseph Eagar
    @JosephEagar

    Brian Watt (View Comment):

    If you’re ungrateful for advances in technology that help to improve your way of life and lives of millions of others on the planet then you’re either harboring some serious resentment about life in general or resentment about those who want to improve it for others – either way you have some serious issues you may want to deal or get help with. There appears more at play here than simply disdain for Apple products.

    Think about the state of tech in the late 90s, or early 2000s.  What it be that bad to live in that world again?  We had desktop computers, laptops, DVDs, “personal digital assistants” (Palm), cell phones, inkjet printers, video games, the internet, etc.

    In the ten years before 2007 the American market got DVDs, BluRay, MP3 players, PDAs, home automation (e.g. X10), flatscreen TVs and internet access became universal.  In the ten years after we got. . . smartphones.  And tablets.  That’s pretty much it, right?  

     

    • #69
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