iPhone in 1999

On the Apple's annual product launch, Steve Jobs talked up the latest iPod Nano, which will be on 5th-generation. Back in 1999, Sony Walkman was the iPod of its day. Interestingly, some market research shows that more walkman sold in Japan than iPod in the past year. How does that possible?

One obvious reason is that music can be played on iPhone. People would rather buy iPhone or walkman instead of iPod, given that iPod is more expensive than walkman and iPod is less powerful than iPhone.

What is the iPhone of its day in 1999? There was none in reality. But I have definitely heard of such design (i.e. a phone with GPS, music player, compass, reader, touchscreen, fast network access, etc) in my college classroom. One of my classmates presented his future phone on a English-training class. That was quite impressive to think of a new kind of phone, when 2G cellphone barely got populated over the world. And ten years later, iPhone 3GS has been a hit for everybody.

From an engineer's perspective, imagine something new is not that hard; the hard part is to make it happen. That's why Apple amazes us.