It is the 10th anniversary (birthday?) of the first iPhone's release to the public. Here are somethings you might not remember from a time BEFORE iPhones...

 

Can you even remember not having apps on your phone? Not being able to FaceTime? To use the internet on your phone?

 

Do you remember a time before you had to stand in line every two years to get the latest model or update on your iPhone?

 

 

Let's take a trip down memory lane with some phones that I had before "smart phones"

 

#1. My very first phone.

 

The Nokia brick. I know that's not it's official name. But we ALL know the phone I'm talking about. When the apocalypse comes, the only things that will survive are cockroaches and this phone. You could drop this phone on the ground a million times and it would quit. Yeah, the back might pop off and the battery might fall out, but you put that all together again and you're golden.

 

I dropped mine one time and the front popped off AND the screen came out (which I'm pretty sure was made of car windshield glass). I put it all back together and it was fine. Not a crack on it.

 

And what could these "bricks" do?

-call
-text
-play snake

That's it.

 

And it was almost easier to call someone that to text them. You didn't have entire conversations on your phone to look back on and keep track of what you were talking about. You sent someone a line of text. They'd send you a line of text. None of it was saved on your phone. You had to keep track of that conversation in your head.

 

And you had to old school text too. You want to say "Hello"?  4-4-3-3-5-5-5-5-5-5-6-6-6 SEND

 

And ringtones? It came with ringtones, but if you wanted a song as your ringtone you had to buy an 8-bit version of them online and then they would send a download text to your phone.

 

You haven't heard the J. Geils Band "Centerfold" until you hear it in 8-bit coming through a Nokia speaker...

 

 

#2. The phone I had in high school.

 

A FLIP PHONE. WITH COLOR. THAT TOOK PICTURES.

 

This sh*t BLEW MY MIND.

 

You could:

-call
-text
-play Bejeweled (the ancestor of Candy Crush)
-take (really crappy) pictures
-use the internet

 

But you really couldn't use the internet because it took a half hour to connect and by that time you've already racked up about $500 worth of phone damages on your next bill, so you frantically try to exit out and pray to god you disconnected.

 

Ringtones were no longer in 8-bit! You still had to pay to download them but they were much better quality.

 

And nothing was more satisfying than ending a phone conversation with a SNAP of your phone. It was the equivalent of slamming a home phone down on a receiver. What can we do now? Press "END" really hard? No. Not as satisfying as the good 'ol fashioned phone SNAP!

 

 

#3. My college phone.

 

Okay, now imagine if a Nokia brick and a Nintendo DS had a baby. That was this phone. It LOOKED like a basic rectangular cell phone. BUT WAIT. It opened up like a DS to reveal a bigger screen and a keyboard. A KEYBOARD. No more punching a million numbers to send a text message!

 

You could:

-call
-text
-take pictures
-use the internet (still questionable)
-play Bejeweled

 

It was basically a flip phone. It just flipped a different way and had a keyboard.

 

#4. The phone I have now...

 

I am not ashamed to say that my current phone still has a slide out keyboard. WHAT? I like the buttons! And it IS a smart phone!

You can:

-call
-text
-e-mail
-get apps (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram)
-take pictures AND video
-use as an MP3 player
-get internet that doesn't cost you a months rent to connect to
-GPS

 

I will say that my current phone IS on it's last leg and I will be updating it soon. Don't worry, I'll be a modern 21st century girl before you know it. Snappin' all the Chats and such. (Please ignore me. I am a disgrace to my generation.)

 

See? See how far we've come with phones? We went from black and white bricks, to tiny computers in our hands. What's going to happen in the NEXT 10 years with iPhones (or cell phones in general)? Will I be making another blog post like this and say "Remember when phones DIDN'T have a hologram feature?? HOW DID WE SURVIVE!?"

 

Here's to the next 10 years iPhone! and Happy Birthday!

 

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