When Steve Jobs first unveiled the iPhone on January 9th, 2007, at the MacWorld convention in San Francisco, surely not even he, with his prescient wisdom, could have envisaged how much his flagship product would go on to change the world.
The iPhone birthed a new age of mobile communication – one that has transgressed all corners of society and irreversibly changed how we use the internet and interact with one another.
The Incessant Growth of Mobile Computing and Tech
In the pre-iPhone era, the closest thing we had to mobile computing came in the form of cumbersome laptops, more often than not tethered to fixed-line connections. The iPhone changed all that, and as demand for the transformative device skyrocketed, so mobile connection providers, Apple’s rival competitors, and software companies raced to keep up and satiate demand for more mobile-based products.
The iPhone birthed the concept of mobile apps, helped force the increase in connection speeds, and even brought about the demise of once-successful products like Adobe Flash. As our love of mobile devices grew and grew, so web developers were forced to find better coding and design practices that would scale to different screen sizes. Indeed, now as we near the end of 2021, it’s suggested up to 70% of all internet traffic comes from handheld devices. Moreover, we also now stand on the threshold of a new generation of internet-enabled wearables and similar Internet of Things (IoT) gadgets that are set to transform the way we use and interact with the web of the future.
And all this was largely kickstarted by the humble iPhone – a truly game-changing product that has changed both our work and personal lives.
Mobile Tech and the Workplace
Mobile technologies are transforming both how and where firms can operate, opening up huge opportunities and giving rise to a truly mobile workforce. By embracing cloud technology, companies can now function as well (if not better) than they previously did – and at a fraction of the cost.
Better yet, cloud tech is fundamentally cheaper to run and gives all firms the chance to operate on a level playing field, benefitting from the same cutting-edge equipment, regardless of size or budget. In the right hands, cloud systems are also relatively easy to set up and maintain – meaning firms can either pass their digital services to a specialist provider or put existing staff on training courses to watch GCP training videos (or similar for other cloud platforms) to learn the basics and thereby have in-house support.
It could easily be argued that much of the technology we take for granted today was produced first for commercial means, then slowly trickled its way down to the mass-market – and mobile tech is no different. Where once high-end, advanced mobile equipment and connections were the preserve of only the richest firms or individuals, it’s now almost impossible to imagine everyday life without them. Mobile computing now permeates all aspects of our world – from the way we work to how we shop, communicate and enjoy media – and the trend towards the mobile internet shows little signs of slowing.
