Reflections on the first iPhone ad
A tech-inspired renaissance of our time
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Apple’s first advert of the iPhone back in 2007 was deliberately understated but for good reason. The entire 31-second video captured how the iPhone will lend a digital twist to seemingly mundane moments of communication. It featured clips from popular TV shows and movies comprising of various A-list actors, including Ben Stiller and Sarah Jessica Parker, simply saying, "hello”. There was a sneak preview of a high resolution touch-screen phone at the end of the clip but without the usual futuristic proclamations that typically accompany new technology reveals.
The ad was a largely prophetic announcement to the world of a new device that would fundamentally change the way we work and connect with each other, right to the very core of our first greeting. In fact, ‘hello’ was a somewhat cryptic tease of the future, a compelling and assertive message to all that these phones (along with its computing power) will become an unquestionable part of our cultural fabric.
In a casual and yet significant nod to American folklore, viewers are shown, towards the end of the video, an in-phone image of a call from John Appleseed, who would be a recurring character in future Apple adverts. Johnny ( as he is better known) is a character widely believed to be based on on the life of John Chapman, the son of an American Revolutionary war veteran. Chapman, born in 1774 in Leominster, Massachusetts, was an outdoorsman and missionary who is said to have traveled on foot across the United States, planting apple tree nurseries wherever he went. He was believed to possess an uncanny knack for discovering the best planting spots across America and his wilderness skills and physical endurance was often regarded as a benign symbol of the European settlers’ conquest of the American continent.
In a similar fashion to how America’s much-loved and endearingly eccentric nomad carved his rightful place in American folklore, the iPhone has engraved itself as a cultural icon in the hearts and minds of both technophiles and the common man. The iPhone’s 31-second introduction to the world served to highlight an inevitability that most of us missed - the fact that a new generation of mobile computing would, like the myth of John Appleseed and his apple plantations, find its way into every nook and cranny of our lives, at a pace unbeknownst to even the most prescient fortune teller.
The iPhone’s simple yet elegant aesthetic and its seemingly brash confidence in occupying a relatively untested smartphone market, attracted legions of fans. Its insane rise in popularity prompted people like David Kuo, a former special assistant to the Bush administration, to coin the term "Appleism", in reference to the fervent form of fandom surrounding Apple products.
"Apple isn't a cult anymore, it has become a full-blown religion with scores of millions of followers…The frenzy around the iPhone brings to mind the clamouring throngs that greeted Jesus at the height of his ministry” - David Kuo
The iPhone will, for the next decade at least, both define and re-shape the realities of humans, communities and institutions. Together with the predominance of third-party development apps, there was a promise of instantaneous communication and information flows, from paying your bills to contacting a local government official. But most importantly, the iPhone will impose itself with much aplomb as a supremely necessary digital appendage to our everyday rituals whether you liked it or not.
It has, for better or worse, been a source of distraction from the rigours of the real-world. It has served as a convenient social buffer to avoid painfully awkward small-talk in the office lunch room. It has shared fleeting moments with us in bus-stops, trains, offices, restaurants, toilets, bedrooms, kitchens and other spaces and places. It has also housed some of our most painful and happy moments. Using an example from my own life, I still to this day, have text messages from when my wife first informed me that she was expecting, replete with all the happy emojis you could think of!
There is no denying that Apple’s iPhone product wasn’t just intent in announcing a new fangled technology, it was intent in being part of our everyday ritualised life, akin to a family member that you only just discovered you had, and one that would take up residence with you for the foreseeable future. It would seamlessly integrate into roles and responsibilities that we hold as fathers, mothers, children, office workers, politicians, teachers and artists to name a few, allowing us to quickly complete tasks and projects of varying complexities and micro-manage our lives to a level of organisation that Marie Kondo would be proud of.
For me, the charm of the first iPhone ad wasn’t in the technology. After all, it wasn’t the first touchscreen phone ever to be invented. That accolade falls to IBM way back in 1992. Rather, the novelty of the ad lies in the manner in how it communicated its remarkably simple message; that an indelible change is happening. There was no need for excessive celebratory fanfare, unlike some of Apple’s later offerings, because the real product that Apple was selling at the time was really its extraordinary foresight. A foresight squarely focused in changing the premise of what the mobile phone meant as a tool for communication and socialisation. The above sentiment was further reinforced when Steve Jobs announced at the iPhone’s official launch back in 2007, that ‘Apple Computers’ would now be officially known as ‘Apple Inc’, in an effort to mark Apple’s introduction within a broader ecosystem of everyday consumer electronics beyond computers. They would create products that had a legitimate right to inform, embellish and modify our everyday rituals and practices. It was a true ‘hello’ moment that didn’t need further qualifying.