As the iPhone celebrates its tenth anniversary, we wonder what the world would be like without it

It’s 29 June, 2017 and today is the tenth anniversary of the launch of the iPhone. On 29 June, 2007, the first “Apple smartphone” (yeah, you never see those two words together) called the iPhone, went on sale and changed the world. Or did it? Back in the day, everyone was busy using T9-enabled keypads to send text messages from Nokia’s N-Series smartphones. It was a time when you could buy a smartphone that was designed for a particular purpose, where manufacturers had the balls to build a smartphone solely for gamers (N-Gage) and one that was solely for messaging and email (BlackBerry) with all those tiny little keys. Many still consider the latter to be the best and the quickest way to deal with your email. Once late Apple CEO Steve Jobs showed up on stage presenting an iconic keynote, it basically changed the way we perceive smartphones. With the final reveal of a compact computer with desktop-like performance, he blew audiences away by using his finger (everyone else used a stylus) to interact with the software interface that ran buttery smooth. It was then that the revolution of software applications and smartphones literally began. However, this was also the death of creativity and thinking outside the box as every “smartphone” today basically does the same thing (we rarely see purpose-built devices these days), whether it’s Andy’s Rubin’s Essential Phone or a Google Pixel . But what if Steve Jobs just wasn’t interested in building a mobile phone? The iPod continued to be a hit with its clickwheel, while Andy Rubin was content with the idea that Android was best suited for smarter digital cameras. Within the parallels of time, could there be an alternate reality where the iPhone does not exist and Nokia continues to rule the smartphone game? Let’s just imagine that it does. If Apple continued to build Macs iPods while Nokia expanded into phablets (like the N900) and built and improved on its software. What would we have in such a scenario? Well, it’s not exactly a pretty picture to begin with, but it does have a happy ending, keeping in mind our most common problems with smartphones today. Here’s what I think such an alternate reality would look like. The Bad For all the Nokia fans out there, Nokia (the real Nokia, mind you) would continue to exist and play a major role in smartphones and their development. Developers would not be a major part of the way forward for smartphones as they are today for mobile software. Back in the day, we would usually look at developers only when it came to downloading games (mostly Java ones) until the Nokia N-gage came along. In short, you would be more than happy to see the Nintendo Switch go on sale as a true portable gaming platform (alongside Sony’s PSP) back in March. I think we would still continue to see resistive displays in the market on cheaper smartphones as development at scale would not have picked up since it was the Apple juggernaut that made them mainstream. There would still be plenty of buttons (one for each function) on your smartphone. BlackBerry would continue to exist since Nokia wasn’t really good at email (even though it pushed its multi-key Communicator to the next level) and Steve Jobs was busy innovating iPods. There would continue to be more variations of the BlackBerry Bold, year after year, that did the same thing… year after year. The Good Yes, there is actually a good side to this. I am pretty sure that every single human being is fed up of looking at ‘chocolate bar’ shaped smartphones year after year ever since Steve Jobs revealed the iPhone on stage. Yes software evolved and smartphones can now do a lot more today thanks to standardization and apps. But what about design? I remember waiting for a new Nokia smartphone to be launched every few months and the company’s refreshed models being released every two years. Every new design was refreshing and changed design philosophies with the times. Nokia in particular was known for going all crazy with new keypad designs that now seem hard to imagine from an app-friendly usability point of view. [caption id=“attachment_386036” align=“aligncenter” width=“400”] Before iPhone and after iPhone. Image: zanesafrit.typepad.com[/caption] You just knew that every year, there would be a bunch of new models that were purpose built. Camera smartphones had great cameras, music smartphones did music and multimedia smartphones (large ones) did video and worked well as portable media players (PMPs). This was not just with Nokia, but with Sony Ericsson and Samsung as well. Sony Ericsson made brilliant camera smartphones, while Samsung and Motorola mastered flip-phones. You could step into a highly secure work environment using a Nokia E62 (without a camera), or go on a vacation carrying a Sony Ericsson K750i without the need to login in using your Gmail ID and getting bombarded with emails. The need to carry a large smartphone with dual cameras on the front that would heat up after recording video for few minutes, thanks to its “powerful” processor would not be considered “cool”. In short, mobile devices would continue to be purpose-built and that would make life simpler, and maybe even more enjoyable, for some. More importantly, the much-loved (or much hated) Nokia N-Gage would continue to exist and give the Nintendo Switch some competition. In short, Apple literally took away the “cool factor” from phones. Who knows? It’s possible that Instant messengers would not have become too popular. There would not be any annoying WhatsApp groups. SMS and MMS would have evolved as global standards of communication. You would no longer need to check if your instant messenger supported a particular smartphone, software or ecosystem as SMS just works across platforms anyway. The focus would still be on the mobile browser instead of apps and their connected ecosystems to access the internet. We will not be comparing hardware specifications while buying a smartphone, but looking at its feature set instead. And lastly. Smartphone hacks would still be a hardware thing, as compared to software being the focus today. While many will argue that this is not a pretty picture, I am sure there are many out there seeking dumb tech to make their lifestyles simpler and this is exactly where things would have remained in an alternate dimension where the iPhone did not exist. Kids would not be into their smartphones texting one another, but meeting up instead. With fewer people fiddling with their phones all day (there would not be enough features). Ok, an email just popped up on my smartphone! Gotta run!