Interesting that you suggest the iPhone changed the world because 'a billion people are using the iPhone to all their loved ones'. You realize they would have just used a phone before the iPhone, and therefore, the iPhone hasn't changed that process.

This is the point where I suggest the iPhone didn't REALLY change that much for most of us. Sure, it's easier to get maps and directions now (though old Blackberrys had that too). But the massively world changing innovations of smartphones are really minor conveniences wrapped in nice packaging.

Unless, of course, you live in less-developed countries, where a smart-phone may be your first computer, or even your first phone, and offers a connection to information and the rest of the world that you didn't have before.

> This is the point where I suggest the iPhone didn't REALLY change that much for most of us. Sure, it's easier to get maps and directions now (though old Blackberrys had that too)

For me it was when my parents (without any prompts from myself) got an iPhone and started emailing / Facetiming me from it.

If you had told me 6 years ago that my parents would be able to send me email from their phone, or be sophisticated enough to look up movie times while I'm out having dinner with them I would have laughed.

I think what the iPhone did was make it easy for everyday people to use technology that was only available to a select few. Not just with their technology (which made it easy to use) but also their advertising / marketing which made everyone aware of it.

Watch people out in public sometime. Probably over half of them are absorbed in something on their smartphone. We're constantly processing information now. It's a huge change, and I'm not convinced it's for the better.

When we just had dumb-phones, we were "always available", but now we're "always connected".