My wife called one day, I work away from home, and said to get a smart phone as we had a data plan for everyone. I went to our carrier and asked about smart phones; 'do you listen to music on your phone?', 'no', 'do you play games?', 'no', 'do you watch videos?', 'no', 'do social media?', 'no', 'why do you want a smart phone?', 'because my wife said to get one', we have a data plan'. When I pointed at one and started to ask a question he said 'here, take this one, it is the best choice, take my word for it'. It was an iPhone 4 for $1.

It works well, the camera has better white balance than my Olympus mirrorless camera, the GPS can be useful but moving the screen around seems to drop pins here and there and I end up going to the wrong location. My fingers are big, I did free weights for awhile and my thumbs cover the keyboard. The battery on my old phone was good for about a week, this one for two days at the most. Facetime is nice, and I joke that in the event of a disaster I have a compass good for about a day. My daughter can be a good dj finding lots of different songs, but she acknowledges that CDs are better, it isn’t even close.

I've worked in high tech most of my life, currently in semiconductors, but that doesn’t automatically make me a fan of everything new and trendy.

I am less worried about the IPhone staying ahead of the Galaxy; it just needs to stay on par. What sells IPhones and other Apple products is the ecosystem and product support, the seamless connectivity among products, the genius bar, the shear user-friendliness of it all, which is unbeatable. This is the value of Apple. I do admit, it's a little like the Hotel California, but I am happy to be a guest.

A good case could be made that it and "social" media played a significant role in making Donald Trump president of the United States.

It comes as no surprise that you are enamored of Apple, but to attribute all the mentioned advances to the iPhone is a stretch of any imagination. The iPhone was revolutionary in some respects, but it was still an evolution to the things that were already happening at a very fast pace.

The genie isn't going back in the bottle, so we need to learn how to use smart phones in the best way possible.

While we marvel at our newest and emerging technologies, what this phone has done more than anything else is to create a society of very lonely people, utterly estranged from each other.

Whilst looking down obsessively, afraid to miss the next text, life is passing everyone by.

Cell phone was the death of intuition. Who needs intellect when you have a library of information and misinformation in your pocket? Why experience the real world when you can get your opinions from the television set that is always with you. What a miraculous invention. And it's only going to get better.

yes, it has altered mine--it has taken away all the once private spaces, the beaches are filled with phones, the restaurants, theaters, stores, the homeless use the outlets in the carports to charge their phones, and along with its sibling the internet it has killed just about everything else.
But mostly, it has confirmed what many suspected for generations--Americans are SHEEP, lazy, dependant, they have no life, they have fewer friends, they lack interest in things beyond themselves.

I am surprised at all the negativity. Stop complaining and help your kids navigate this useful tool. It reminds me of an anecdote I read on iPhone using NYTimes a few years ago. I am paraphrasing here -- When books first came, older people complained how many youngsters were spending valuable time reading pulp fiction instead of working in the fields or helping with chores.

Iphone is a great technological innovation. I can facetime my parents in India, safely order a cab for my cousin in Ann Arbor, read books about public policy, get news, drive safely using google maps instead of struggling with a big paper map, use Google and get the world's information as soon as I can, get hurricane alerts, book hotels and flights when I got stranded, payed using apple-pay when I forgot wallet at home -- so many good things came out of Apple.

It has ruined the art of uninterrupted face-to-face conversation.

Watch people here in Marin cross the street, or walk across the Whole Food parking lot. Their heads are all down and locked on their phones as they step in front of moving cars. Alas, it's Marin, so they know it's the responsibility of everyone else to watch out for their rich and entitled lives.

Hey fool. . pay attention!

If I went up to somebody and put my face right in theirs people would think there was something wrong with me. I'm still not quite sure how sticking an iPhone at the end of your nose to take a picture of yourself and then sending it to everyone is any different. Do most people realize how big their nose's looks in a selfie? They're hardly flattering.

This "we" thing is what is turning me off the most. "We" are all doing the same. Ugh turnoff. Although I have an iPhone because it's the most convenient (no android etc is not almost as easy to use at all, I tried it for a day) I always buy the cheapest smallest possible one, currently it's a cs4 I believe it's called and it's still a mind blowing 440 bucks with taxes. Crazy expensive for just a phone. Because that's what a cell phone still is to me, a phone. I don't take selfies or photos really at all (way too lazy for that), nor do I use more than two to three apps on a daily basis, no games no nothing. All that craze left me totally cold. What I mostly do is reading emails and texting people that I'm running late or early or whatever. Oh and I read CNN and the nyt, online by typing in their web address. CNN app turned out to be sluggish so got rid of that very quickly. Of course I have no Facebook nor any other social media site. It actually turned out I'm not social at all and find it super annoying to know what people are doing on a minute by minute basis let alone letting them know what I am doing at any given moment, I mean I don't want to shock those poor fellas. I'm calling my mom every other month however, I think that's enough social media. So really no fancy new iphone needed, total overkill. I would be happy however if they finally figured out better batteries. That's all I need improvement wise.

One might appreciate an article which philosophically, or sociologically or even psychologically examines smartphone's or IPhone's use in our culture - and this article gestures at that; but, seeing so many fairly mundane articles about particularly iPhones in this paper year after year makes me wonder if the paper is getting paid by Apple.

The fascination of this paper with iPhones reminds me of when Tom Brokaw started reporting the movie's weekend box office earnings as if that were national news - each Monday night. I knew it was the beginning of the end of original thinking in the movie business. Are IPhones really news? Is the new iPhone needing wireless ear-buds front page news?

iPhone presents the illusion of creativity in what is more like mass preprogramming. No doubt there are good qualities to the product - photo editing - etc - but the downsides I fear will be remarkably dark - at the Graduate School I teach a seminar at occasionally - the quality and use of language and - most noticably - student's attention spans - have definitely diminished over the years - and I associate the advent of the Smartphone with this decline - Even Apple's own ads - these huge billboards covered with a photograph with the caption - "Taken with an iPhone 7 - " The photographs are just plain bad, boring - not even good boring - it's sort of remarkable how lifeless they are - and how banal the world looks after seeing them.

After anyone has read this, I suggest they go read Who Owns a Monkey Selfie? Settlement Should Leave Him Smiling, also in today's Times, and then be convinced without a doubt that all this new technology is literally reverting us back into apes.

Would Gary Cooper carry a smart phone? Nope.

Stop sugar-coating it. These phones ruined everything. Everyone knows it, but few will admit it. People don't talk to each other, they don't go out as much, they don't notice their surroundings, they just bury their head in the thing. We don't even know the true psychological damage this will cause long-term, as toddlers grow up staring at screens, already addicted. Truly the best of all possible worlds, so healthy. Just a small price to pay for so much convenience, right?

Distracted a lot of people while driving.

Many of whom are not alive anymore.

This is one of the worst effects.

Teenagers, twenty-somethings with their heads looking down when you pass them on the highway. They are addicted.

I always take their plate number if possible and report them.

After 30 years I finally gave up my nicotine addiction only to replace it with a iphone addiction. So I gave up social media but now I spend all day looking at news sites, weather, stock markets. I hate smart phones.

Lots of negative comments here.
Luddites still abound.
How can anyone be critical of the utter genius that the iPhone represents?
In a bit over a hundred years we went from the Pony Express, to telegrams, to transoceanic cable links, to a device that is capable of just about everything.
My wife travels to India on business. In real time she can Face Time with me at no cost to either of us.
I can verify any fact I wish to investigate.
I can use it as a charge card.
I don't have to wait for photos to be developed only to be disappointed when out of 48 of them, I'm satisfied with one. and they are free.
I don't need a phone directory and in virtually any emergency I can immediately get assistance.
And I can read my favorite paper, or, my second favorite, The New York Times.

I love the iPhone. I'm a huge fan. The world is wide and I love that I am connected to it. It has great uses: reading the NYT without that nasty ink on my hands, scrolling through pics of contractors' work, checking into my flight on the way to the airport, even looking at pictures of faraway or hard-to-reach places that I am not able to get to right now, or perhaps ever.

That being said, I grew up without technology, and thus appreciate that slower time and know when to put technology down. When sitting at the table across from another human being is more important than Facebook with my friends. When looking out the window on the train is restful for the brain, and can lead to new insights or ideas about life or what to cook for dinner.

The iPhone is a tool. It can rule us, or we can rule it. It's a choice.
(One that, admittedly, we are poorly executing.)

iPhone has given myriad newly improved things, like like lipstick on a pig, but hasn't added to human intelligence, dignity or happiness.

Yes, I am an old, and old-fashioned guy.

On the one hand I love the smartphone. On the other hand I hate Apple.

One of the things I hate about Apple is how they make their stuff in China for no money employing borderline child laborers and earn huge profits due to their exorbitant prices for items that others sell for far less and which substantially do the same things, if not more.

I remember how President Obama asked Jobs to move some of their production to this country and Jobs outright refused.

What it has changed for me is that all my cars have been smashed into from behind by young people speeding, tailgaiting, and looking down at their smartphones. Thanks, Apple!

The smartphone is today's drug of choice. I believe tech companies like Facebook, SnapChat, Twitter, etc fall into the same ethical category as Big Tobacco: they encourage and feed a destructive addiction.

I've never owned a smartphone, and intend to put off owning one as long as I possibly can.

The iPhone, and also the Big Four in social media (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and *especially* Instagram) have raised narcissism and self-absorption to levels that I did not think were possible EVEN for human beings.

Blame our flawed species, not the devices our fellow humans have invented, for how too many people have utilized the iPhone & Co.

Notice that the iPad came out after the success of the iPhone. It is from small to large, completely opposite to many other gadgets like the Walkman.

I work in technology, IT security no less. I am a huge advocate for certain applications of technology. However, I do not have, nor will I ever have, a smart phone (banning the release of a true open-source platform that permits a much higher level of control over how data is stored and used).

iPhones present a unique set of challenges to human society, and ultimately I think we are better off without constant access to the internet. To say nothing of the constant barrage of data breaches, security vulnerabilities and violations of privacy.

Anyone older than about age 20 remembers a time without smart phones. We managed to get along just fine - plan in advance. It's not that difficult.

Yes, we can thank Apple, Google and Microsoft for ushering in the "ME, ME, ME" era for the masses and distracting young people from things that are really important in life like a stable physical community, education and the greater good.

Thanks to people of all ages who see technology as something to enhance OUR lives - not control them.

iPhones, and devices like them, made it possible and even easy to document events in real time. For that, not to mention its many other excellent qualities, it is a revolutionary and necessary object for all of us in the internet age.

The day after Steve Jobs made the iPhone presentation in January 2007, I took all my spare cash and bought Apple stock. A ~1400% gain later, I can quite comfortably say that it's one of the best decisions I ever made. Uncle Steve helped to put my kids through college, paid for home improvements, and is now paying for the purchase of a second home.

My only regret is that I didn't have more cash lying around in 2007.

This product radically changed the world in more ways than just in the tech arena. Anyone who cannot see or understand its wide-ranging impact on our lives is simply jealous, or has regret, or suffers from Apple Derangement Syndrome, or is a bit clueless -- or, more likely, all of the above.

I truly appreciate the extraordinary skill Apple has to package technology in a great way, but I think there's too much credit given to the iPhone or its developers for all the phenomena described here. Regular phones already had front-facing camera's, that could be used with 3G for video-calls. Uber isn't here because of Apple or iPhone. Etcetera. These devices are packed with technology that countless engineers and developers in a wide range of companies and government institutions have been working on. To attribute this to the iPhone is more an expression of attachment to this company that obscures the understanding of recent history than a profound assessment of its achievements.

A teen-aged relative of mine commented, "It used to be that younger people helped older folks across the street. Today it is the older people who must help the younger ones get safely across the street because they are all staring at their phones."

I get that the Galaxy is a great phone does everything that an iPhone does (or perhaps more). But for me, the seamless connectivity between my phone and desktop (and tablet) is crucial. I'm happy in my walled garden of apple products....it works for me. (Before anyone barks at me, this isn't criticism of Samsung or Android...I'm sure they're great...go with what works for you).

This misses the most important point: ask SONY how their camcorder, camera, Walkman and phone revenues have fared since the introduction of the iPhone and you will understand it marked a shift from decades of Japanese dominance in consumer electronics to US (and to some extent, South Korean) dominance.

This account doesn't read like the history of the IPhone, it reads more like the history of an addiction. In addiction a tolerance builds up so more and more of the substance or the thing or behavior is required to get the same "high."

The iPhone itself is just a device, but like any other device it serves to amplify personalities....frequently in a bad way. The iPhone today for far too many people is a tool of narcissism at the high end of society and a tool of stupidity at the low end of society. God help us all.

It's hard to remember what life was like before smartphones. For all their practical uses, smartphones are basically a means to fritter away precious time. Hateful things, similar in ways to narcotics.

I am a fossil who remembers life on this earth decades before the onset of the cell / smart phone. If my voice is not already irrelevant, it soon will be, and before you know it there will be no one left who knew of a time when all humans were not fixated on a glowing hand-held device.

For those of you who have never known a world otherwise, listen to me when I say I witnessed the gradual change, as these devices infiltrated, some would say diminished, our day-to-day social discourse.

I have never owned such a phone, so what do I know, but I'll tell you this. Over time, I watched the commuters on the same train I've taken for 15 years devolve from a gregarious bunch to rows upon rows of isolated, entranced zombies, heads bowed, fingers mindlessly poking at their phones. Few chatting, people disengaged from one another.

And I asked then and there, and still do: How exactly is this SOCIAL media?

The potential downsides of smartphones are so disturbing that I wrote a pledge for people to take. The purpose of the pledge is to control this technology and not allow it to control us. There are seven elements to the pledge, and it has been published in Forbes.

You may read it here: https://www.forbes.com/sites/bruceweinstein/2017/06/28/this-simple-pledg...

If you decide to use it at work or with your family, I'd be keen to know what happens as a result.

I am part of Apple ecosystem. I use my iPhone a lot. But there are limits when and where I use it. I don't do selfies and I wonder about folks that insist on taking a selfie every three or four seconds. I was recently on a cruise and one lady was taking a selfie of her eating breakfast. Folks are so engrossed in their smart phones they act as if it is your fault they walked into you. The point is the iPhone and its compadres have changed our social lives and at times not for the better.

The local map company, the bible of getting around Southern California without getting lost, vanished. Our hilly neighborhood with its twisting streets, none of which have street signs, suddenly became popular with burglars, who can now steal without getting hopelessly lost.

Restaurants have gotten quieter. People are not talking to each other. Instead, they are playing with their phones.

Driving has become more dangerous again. Drinking and driving declined sharply. However texting while driving has become rampant. Texting while walking has lead to more pedestrian deaths. We nearly ran over someone who walked into traffic while texting, not noticing the light was red.

Movies are getting a little better, because teens are checking Rotten Tomatoes before they buy a ticket.

How many more jobs have been sent to China because Apple makes those things over there?

Facebook now knows more about you than your own mother does. And the information is for sale.

Full disclosure.
I have a land line.
I've never taken a selfie.
No apps.
But I did read an astonishing book this week.
It was called "Feed".
M.T. Anderson wrote it in 2002.
It was a "National Book Award" finalist.
I suggest that you give it a read while waiting in line.
It's about what happens when the feed gets implanted and the feed is owned by corporations who only want you to "go shopping".
Remember? That was what President "W" Bush said to do when he was asked by a reporter what America should do right after September 11.
He said, "Go shopping."
Think on that while you are standing in line....

Steve Jobs once said he wanted to change the world — and he did, not once but four times. The Mac popularized the graphic user interface (though the GUI was invented elsewhere) and suddenly computers were not just for command-line geeks, they were for anyone who could point and click. Microsoft had to follow suit with a relatively poor copy. The iPod changed forever the way we listen to and distribute music — for better and for worse. The iPhone revolutionized the concept of the cellular phone and turned it into a truly portable and connected computer with endlessly flexible applications. And the iPad changed how we consume media.

Since Jobs, Apple has become a refiner and developer but has never been truly revolutionary. I suspect it never will again. Jobs was a complete a**hole, but he was a genius. Apple is coasting on the remnants of his creativity.

As a college instructor of millennials, I can say with some confidence that it did nothing to help their attention spans or sharpen their intelligence.

As the technology evolved, I moved from a Motorola Star-Tac (still coolest phone ever IMHO), to various "non-smart" phones, to the Blackberry, to Samsung products. Never bought into the Apple hype or its products because, at the very end of the day and if we're are truly honest with ourselves, a smart phone is a smart phone; they all do pretty much the same thing. And yes, while those things are truly useful they are, in the main, prosaic and not that fascinating. Sure, smart phones are great tools but so is my Swiss Army knife though you won't see me walking into traffic while playing with it.

And, by the way, I have never taken a selfie with my phone. I see myself in the mirror every morning and that is quite enough!

It may be good to have an IPhone, but it is not necessary to have one. Any smart phone such as Galaxy 3 is adequate enough to handle routine daily life conveniently. And we are using Galaxy 3 every day, and may be we will upgrade to Galaxy 4 or 5 this coming "Black Friday." Galaxy 8 is out of the question. By the way, I would like to say IPhone 8 selling for $1,000.00 per phone is a budget crasher. It is not worth it at all.

Perhaps it will be left to historians to assess the effects of the iPhone -- and internet technology more broadly -- on human relationships and behavior. Meantime, one anecdote from an office colleague comes to mind: she told me recently that she asked her 16 year old daughter if she wanted to go visit some friends down the block, as it was a gorgeous day. The youngster replied: "Why, mom, when I can stay in my room and Face-time them?"