9:41 a.m. PST on January 9, 2007 is one of those tiny timestamps that changed the way we live. Steve Jobs stood onstage, listed an iPod, a phone and an internet communicator — and then said, almost offhand, “These are not three separate devices. This is one device.” The room went quiet, then erupted. The applause wasn’t just for a product; it was for the idea that technology could quietly fold itself into everyday life and, in doing so, feel like a glimpse of the future.
Why January 9, 2007 mattered
That first iPhone did something practical and magical at once. It replaced a handful of little annoyances—maps you printed at home, separate cameras and music players, clunky mobile browsers—with a single glass slab that responded to your fingers the way real objects do. It wasn’t perfect—no App Store at launch, no copy-and-paste, and painfully slow mobile data by today’s standards—but holding one felt like stepping into a new habit. When it reached stores on June 29, 2007, a line outside an Apple Store was as much a cultural event as a retail opening.
Writers and commentators still reach for Star Trek and Philip K. Dick when they describe that pivot: Jobs’ vision leaned Roddenberry—technology as an invisible enabler—while other threads of tech lore warned of Dick’s darker amplifications of human flaws. For a while, the Roddenberry impulse won the day: devices promised to make ordinary life smoother, not stranger.
How the magic wore off
Two plain things explain why product launches no longer feel as electrifying. First: marginal utility. The jump from a flip phone to an iPhone was enormous. The jump from last year’s model to this year’s model is usually a camera tweak, a slight speed bump, maybe a new material. Those small, steady improvements are valuable—but they’re not awe-inspiring.
Second: the friction that comes with modern gadgets. Buying a new device today often means onboarding another app, another account, another subscription. Instead of freeing us from chores, new devices have added a layer of management. The dream of a sleek, simple future has been cluttered by what Philip K. Dick called “kipple”—the accumulation of useless bits and bobs, now both physical (chargers, dongles) and digital (forgotten apps, extra logins).
Corporations have also gotten better at manufacturing buzz around low-impact features while refining the mechanics that keep us glued to screens. Analysts call this the “enshittification” of platforms: incremental changes designed more to extract attention and money than to materially improve daily life. Meanwhile, AI is cropping up everywhere—from toothbrushes to strollers—raising the question not of “so what?” but of “how will this hurt me?” People increasingly greet new launches with suspicion: improved camera, great; new privacy risk, maybe not.
There are signs of the same ecosystem tightening that started with the iPhone’s integration and has become more pronounced. Apple’s recent decisions around device behaviors in Europe underscore how hardware and software moves can be regulatory as well as technical; changes to iPhone–Apple Watch sync, for example, are part of the broader conversation about how closed ecosystems behave and what consumers can expect Apple to Disable iPhone–Apple Watch Wi‑Fi Sync in EU. That same ecosystem pressure colors reactions to device upgrades today, including the generational shifts we talk about when comparing the first iPhone to models like the iPhone 17 and 17 Pro.
A device can still surprise. But surprises now tend to be incremental or buried in software services: better computational photography, more efficient chips, or AI features layered into existing tools. Those things matter, often in ways that make daily life easier, but they don’t quite recreate the sensation of seeing the future unboxed.
If you miss the rush of those early launches, you’re not alone. There’s a case to be made that another big, consolidating leap—a device or platform that truly reduces complexity instead of adding to it—could restore that sense of wonder. Until then, new releases will sit somewhere between practical upgrade and skeptical curiosity.
And for the sentimental: yes, you can still admire a beautifully engineered gadget and enjoy the convenience of a tight hardware–software fit. You can also buy into the ecosystem that gave us this era of devices—if you want a wearable that ties into that world, the Apple Watch remains the archetype for many buyers.
The future that felt inevitable in 2007 didn’t vanish; it simply arrived wearing a busier wardrobe than we expected. The question now is whether engineering can cut through the clutter and rebuild a future we’re eager to touch, instead of one we’re wary of managing.