On January 9, 2007, co-founder and then CEO of Apple, Steve Jobs, announced three new revolutionary Apple products in one day: “A widescreen iPod with touch controls, a revolutionary mobile phone, and a breakthrough Internet communications device. An iPod, a phone, and an Internet communicator. An iPod. A phone. Are you getting it? These are not three separate devices. This is one device. And we’re calling it, ‘iPhone’.”
When it comes to iconic smartphones over the past decade, Apple's iPhone is arguably the easiest one for people to recall. While smartphones themselves were already in existence by then, none of them had been quite like the iPhone. It’s easy to forget, but before the iPhone came along multi-touch displays hadn’t been invented. There was no pinch-to-zoom and styluses were a necessity to properly navigate a smartphone. It wouldn’t be until the following year with the release of the iPhone 3G that the iPhone would truly begin its legacy with a more affordable price tag and the introduction of the App Store, but conceptually the original iPhone brought a lot to the table that would inspire smartphone development over the following decade.
Ten years has passed since the original iPhone was introduced. The iPhone may have been a breakthrough for modern smartphones, but it was certainly not the only iconic smartphone to have surfaced over the past decade. Truly, smartphones are in a pretty amazing place right now. It’s hard to find one that doesn’t work perfectly well, even on a budget, and that’s thanks to the efforts of many manufacturers and software developers over the years.
Although I would argue that all smartphones contributed in one way or another to the evolution of mobile tech, some stood out to me more than others. Reflecting on the past decade, here are the smartphones (aside from the already mentioned Apple iPhone) that I consider the most iconic:
T-Mobile G1 (HTC Dream)
The T-Mobile G1 was a phone that I never owned but heard a lot about. As the first commercially available Android device, nobody seemed entirely confident on Android’s ability to compete with the multitude of mobile operating systems already on the market such as BlackBerry OS, Symbian, Windows Mobile, webOS, and iOS. Still, the platform showed promise and, as we can see today, has flourished well above and beyond many of those now extinct mobile platforms.
Motorola Droid
I don’t remember ever seeing the G1 marketed but advertising for the Motorola Droid, Verizon’s first Android device, was everywhere, and boy was it effective. The name became so recognized that people often confused “Droid” with “Android”, and for a while the term “Droid” was practically synonymous with the Android platform (which wasn’t too far off anyway).
HTC EVO 4G
The release of the HTC EVO 4G on Sprint was a pretty big deal given that it was the first smartphone in the U.S. to support 4G, albeit on Sprint’s old WiMAX network. It was also larger phone than people were used to at the time with its 4.3-inch screen (ha).
Nokia Lumia 920
Nokia’s Lumia phones quickly became the face of Windows Phones after the 920 was released. The bright and bold color offerings combined with Nokia’s “tanky” polycarbonate build and exceptional Carl Zeiss cameras made the Lumia line a decent choice at the time even with its inferior app store.
Samsung Galaxy S III
It was the introduction of the Samsung Galaxy S II where I noticed people start to take Android seriously, and the success of the S II seemed to pour directly into the S III’s release the following year. The Galaxy S III's popularity is often credited to its excellent performance and open availability across all four major carriers. At the time carrier exclusivity was still the norm, which is thankfully a rare issue today.
LG Nexus 5
The Nexus line had already grown in popularity with the Nexus 4 thanks to its affordable $299 price tag – which was practically unheard of at the time – but the Nexus 5 was the shining star due to its affordable price tag (although $50 more than the Nexus 4 at $349) and its “nearly flagship" performance.
Moto G
Speaking of affordable price tags and good performance, the Moto G is another iconic device that broke the mold. The Moto G wasn’t just affordable, it was downright cheap and looked good, and the terms “cheap”, “good performance”, and “good-looking” were three terms that just didn’t belong in the same sentence in reference to smartphones, but the Moto G managed to change that.
HTC One (M7)
While we’re on the subject of terms that didn’t go together, the same could be said for “premium build” and “Android” – until the HTC One (M7) debuted. The first in a now long list of smartphones that use the M7’s iconic aluminum unibody design, the M7’s build blew every other Android flagship build out of the water. It was sleek, the back couldn’t shatter, and it just felt like you got what you were paying for when you paid the price for a flagship device.
Samsung Galaxy Note
The Galaxy Note is one of my favorites because I remember being 190% sure that the Note was just too freakin’ big for anybody to ever want it. I liked the idea of an included stylus, but why did the phone need to be so big? Turned out its large size would be one of its most valuable assets. Nowadays it’s hard to find a phone that doesn’t have a 5-inch plus screen, and the Galaxy Note only became more popular after the original’s debut (although I am still interested to see how last year’s events will play out for the Note’s future).
There were a lot of phones that didn't make the list that I still considered iconic, including other generations of smartphones that were mentioned, but I opted to whittle it down to the ones I considered most iconic thus far, otherwise an already long list would be even longer.
But now we want to hear from you, dear readers. Over the past ten years, which smartphones do you consider to be the most iconic and why? Tell us your picks in the comments below!