Our relationship with technology was altered on the release of the first iPhone. Removing the buttons and need for a stylus pushed forward the idea of only implementing multi touch touch screens and minimal physical buttons on future smartphone designs. The days of extensive mini keyboards and general physicality elements on a smart phone were gone and in order to have a chance at competing with Apple, companies needed to follow in their footsteps. Although IBM released a touchscreen phone in 1992, named Simon, using finger touch on the screen was very ineffective compared to using the stylus. Additionally, it wasn’t mainstream or as successful as Apple’s launch.
Personally, I wasn’t old enough to remember the release of the iPhone “2G” or first iPhone, I remember my dad, a diehard Android user buying the succeeding iPhone 3G which had similar capabilities at a more budget friendly price. The first models of the iPhone were an out there concept especially during a time when most people still had flip phones and blackberries. Or really, some people I knew didn’t have a phone at all because their usefulness was not reasonable. Not many people could justify purchasing such an expensive device especially for non work related purposes.
The introduction of touchscreen devices affected interaction design in a way that shifted users’ mindset towards phones. Suddenly, users were empowered to customize their phone in greater ways using gestures that they were already accustomed to, in everyday activities, like tapping, swiping, pinching, and dragging. Humans have emotional connections when using their hands. That’s why many people speak with their hands, eat, and make signals. The same deeper mind and body connection happens when we grace our fingertips across a screen surface and interact with technology to where some people feel as though they can’t go without it. It has become a part of our everyday lives as a sterile externally mechanical object has now become a minimal “blank canvas” to customize internally.
