The iPhone was released on June 29, 2007. It wasn't the first smartphone - smartphones have been in existence since the 1990's - but it's clearly the smartphone that truly launched the mobile revolution.
Recode's How Apple’s iPhone changed the world: 10 years in 10 charts covers some of the amazing changes that the iPhone has brought with it.
It has charts and data on things like the growth of data traffic, phones replacing cameras, its impact on advertising, etc.
But our favorite is it's impact on chewing gum sales.
As the article chart below shows, gum sales have declined substantially since the release of the iPhone.
The reason, according to the article, is we're now too busy looking at our phones in check-out lines to buy gum. Key article quote:
Supermarket checkout lines — strategically stocked with magazines and candy — were for a long time a major point of sale for gum. Consumers waiting on line to pay would look around and make impulse buys. Now, however, we’re so consumed with our phones that we’re not reaching for a pack of gum to stave off our boredom.
This is a great example of secondary effects and unintended consequences (we assume Steve Jobs was not targeting gum sales with the iPhone).
As the article points out there must be many more examples:
"Have drug dealing and other illegal activities become more efficient thanks to the smartphone’s discreet payment model? Has English become more prominent as English-language-based mobile apps connect the developing world? Have smartphones and the omnipresent connectedness they provide enabled the rise of helicopter parents, niche communities or better literacy."
One example we've spotted is walkers distracted by cellphones are leading to increasing rates of pedestrian accidents, injuries and fatalities. This is resulting in cities deploying new types of in ground traffic lights so folks looking down at their cellphones can see them.
The picture below is of a new traffic light in the Dutch town of Bodegraven.
There are no doubt many more examples.
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