Apple iPhone: Ten years since the launch of the definitive smartphone

Tim Cook hails "world-changing" impact of Apple's first smartphone

It is ten years today since Apple co-founder Steve Jobs launched the first iPhone - the device that defined the smartphone and heralded the end of BlackBerry's and Nokia's complacent dominance of the sector.

In the presentation on 9 January 2007 Jobs teased those watching by saying the event would see the unveiling of "a widescreen iPod with touch controls, a revolutionary mobile phone and a breakthrough internet communications device," suggesting three devices would be shown off.

However, it was of course one device: the iPhone.

Over the years the device has gone from strength to strength, with more than one billion iPhones sold across the globe, transforming the way the world lives and works. This is not just with the iPhone, but other operating systems it caused to launch, like Android, and new devices like tablets and smartwatches.

Apple CEO Tim Cook marked the anniversary by promising that despite 10 years of innovations the best is still to come.

"iPhone is an essential part of our customers' lives, and today more than ever it is redefining the way we communicate, entertain, work and live," he said. "iPhone set the standard for mobile computing in its first decade and we are just getting started. The best is yet to come."

Marketing chief Phi Schiller also got in on the act by proclaiming the numerous ways in which iPhones are now used for work and play.

"iPhone is how we make voice and FaceTime calls, how we shoot and share Live Photos and 4K videos, how we listen to streaming music, how we use social media, how we play games, how we get directions and find new places, how we pay for things, how we surf the web, do email, manage our contacts and calendars, how we listen to podcasts, watch TV, movies and sports, and how we manage our fitness and health. iPhone has become all of these things and more. And I believe we are just getting started."

Many have speculated that Apple will come out all guns blazing with its new iPhone in honour of 10 years since the iPhone launch, perhaps by launching a version that features such as wireless charging, an ‘edgeless' all-screen glass display and an OLED screen.