At the cost of sounding rather hyperbolic, the iPhone changed the world more than perhaps any other gadget. Phones had slowly started to get smart but the iPhone expedited the process with cutting-edge innovation year after year. Some might argue that Apple doesn’t really ‘innovate’ as much as it used to earlier but the iPhone – even after 15 years – remains the benchmark against which most other smartphones are compared. The iPhone was a trendsetter in more than one way and here we list out 15 trends that Apple started with its flagship product of the last decade-and-a-half.
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The first phone to take touch screen mainstream
Apple iPhone was the first phone to take capacitive touchscreen mainstream. The year was 2007 when Steve Jobs announced the first iPhone claiming it to be a wide-screen iPod with touch controls, a phone and a web browser in one device that can be interacted with fingers. After the iPhone, every other brand like Nokia, Blackberry, Samsung started adopting the idea.
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Changing the display with multi-touch
Multi-touch was another feature introduced with the first iPhone that pioneered the concept of features like pinch-to-zoom, pinch and rotate, etc.
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App Store: There’s an app for everything and iPhone may be the reason
App Store was introduced by Apple in 2008 with around 500 apps in it. After its success, Google introduced Play Store for Android, Blackberry introduced Store for its smartphones and even Nokia announced a store for their phones too.
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Notch: The ‘cutout’ on the display that has been copied by almost one and all in some form
Notch was also something that Apple introduced and transformed it into a trend. Apple introduced the ‘Notch’ with iPhone X as a part of a major design revamp for iPhone and also to introduce the FaceID as a replacement for the TouchID fingerprint scanner. Other brands were soon to follow with their own version of ‘Notch’. Some made it smaller, some added dual front camera sensors, while some tried to replicate the FaceID-like features in their phones.
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FaceID: Making smartphones secure
While Apple wasn’t the first to introduce the face unlocking feature that it called FaceID, it certainly made it a common feature for smartphones. After Apple, every other brand, including Google added native support for face unlocking in Android.
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Enter ForceTouch tech: Getting clicks on touchscreen right
Haptic engine changes on smartphones when Apple decided to introduce a bigger and more precise vibration motor to mimic click feedback with its Force Touch display in iPhone 6S. Other brands too picked up the concept and started offering a similar type of vibration motor in their phones to offer a more premium experience.
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Fingerprint scanner: All about security at your fingertips
TouchID was introduced with iPhone 5S, which once again wasn’t the first phone to offer a fingerprint scanner. But, it certainly brought the revolution in the smartphone world. Samsung soon followed it with a fingerprint scanner in Galaxy Note 4.
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Headphone jack removal: The trend that perhaps led to AirPods
Apple was the first brand to remove the headphone jack in iPhone 7 and within a year Android smartphone brands started following the trend by removing the infamous headphone jack from their phones, especially flagship devices.
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eSIM: Dual SIM with a ‘twist’
Apple was probably the last to jump on the dual-SIM bandwagon. But it did with a style and twist – eSIM. Apple introduced e-SIM tech in 2018, other brands followed the idea and started offering eSIM support on their phone
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Gesture control: Using gestures on smartphones
Gesture control was not a new concept when Apple announced it in iPhone X with iOS 11. Palm and Blackberry OS 10 offered kinda similar gesture-based navigation system in their days. However, after Apple, Google adopted the idea and now almost every phone has gesture-based navigation.
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Portrait mode: Smartphone photography made better
Portrait mode is also one feature that most people love in their smartphones. It was Apple who introduced it with the iPhone 7 Plus in 2016. Today, it remains one of the most asked features in the smartphone camera.
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Dual camera setup: All about the cameras
Dual camera setup basically pioneered the concept of multi-camera setup we see today on almost every smartphone. But, it was Apple who made the idea mainstream by adding a secondary telephoto lens for taking beautiful pictures in iPhone 8 Plus.
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3D avatars and Memoji: Adding fun to emojis
Apple’s Memoji and 3D avatars also became really famous among OEMs. Samsung introduced its own version of Memoji called AREmoji, Facebook announced Avatars and Xiaomi introduced Mimoji.
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User privacy: Making the iPhone safer and secure
Apple recently started focusing on offering best-in-class privacy and security with its latest version of iOS. The company introduced the ability to manage app permissions and features like showing apps that are currently using microphones and cameras. Google quickly followed it and added similar features in the recently launched Android 12.
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AirDrop: File sharing has never been better
Apple AirDrop is one of the easiest ways to transfer data between Apple devices. For years other brands and Android struggled to implement a similar feature like that until Nearby Sharing arrived with Android 11.