January 9 – iPhone Makes Its Debut

nOn this date in 2007, Apple’s Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone to the world.

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nThe unveiling occurred at the Macworld convention in San Francisco. 

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nIt was pretty much, “Hey! We just reinvented the cell phone!”

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nAnd Jobs was right! Because mobile phones haven’t been the same since!

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nThe phone first went on sale in the United States in June of that year – and customers waited in long lines to buy it. People were so excited about the new phone, some reporters called it the Jesus Phone. In November of 2007, the iPhone became available in the UK, France, and Germany. By 2015 it was available in over 130 countries. (There are around 195 countries in the world.)

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nPeople agree that the iPhone was revolutionary. These days, the app industry is bigger than Hollywood, and social media, released from the confines of computers, is way more used, way more often, by way more people. Plus, mobile-phone-based services like Uber are huge.

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nOf course, when one company pushes the technological boundary, other companies are quick to follow. Although iPhones and Apple products are very popular, with about 1 billion active devices worldwide, Android phones and other devices are even more popular; there are about twice as many active Android devices!

nThanks to Apple and to other tech companies, we can now walk around with computers / telephones / cameras / GPS devices in our pockets. We can check e-mail, Google anything, use social media, send messages, take photos and videos, listen to music, find our way to places in our own cities and in foreign countries, practice another language, play games, keep track of appointments and classes, check the weather, take notes, watch TV shows, shop, read newspaper articles, and much more. Oh! And we can make phone calls! 

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nAlso on this date:

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Martyrs’ Day in Panama

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nPlan ahead:

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• nJanuary holidays

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• nJanuary birthdays

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• nHistorical anniversaries in January

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• nFebruary holidays

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• nFebruary birthdays

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• nHistorical anniversaries in February

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