Five years ago today, Apple’s first iPhone hit stores. Many in the tech world thought that it would be a flop. For one thing, it was ridiculously expensive. For another, it was something no one had ever really heard of before: a smartphone targeted primarily at consumers, rather than business people. Everybody knew that the smartphone market was a business market, especially Research In Motion, makers of the iconic BlackBerry.
Five years later, RIM is in its death throes and Apple’s fifth-generation iPhone, the iPhone 4S, is the most popular single gadget on the planet. In fact, in five years the iPhone has sold 250 million iPhone and raked in $150 billion in revenues. While Google’s Android platform has emerged as a strong competitor – and even taken a larger chunk of the market – the iPhone remains the single most popular smartphone in the world.