It’s rare that a product lives up to the hype. The iPhone surpassed it. As the device celebrates its tenth birthday, there’s no denying that it has changed everything. In fact, the iPhone and its offspring are probably the most impactful products of our lifetimes (especially if you include the NextDraft app). The iPhone is ten. My son is eleven. That means he’s basically never had my full attention. Here’s John Gruber on the launch of three devices in one, that changed everything: “The iPhone was the product Apple had been founded to create — the epitome of everything both of Apple’s founding Steves stood for and obsessed about. The home run of all home runs.” Perfect Ten.

+ “Only four people outside of Apple already had iPhones. They were the four tech writers Apple had chosen to review the phone: Steven Levy, then of Newsweek; Ed Baig, of USA Today; Walt Mossberg, then of The Wall Street Journal; and me, then of The New York Times.” David Pogue and three writers look back at their experience with the first pre-release iPhone.

+ “For 14 years the tech giant reigned as the world’s biggest handset maker and, while it was at it, a primary engine of Finland’s economy.” Businessweek: They Built the First Phone You Loved. Where in the World Is Nokia Now?

+ The phones are everywhere. The cell signal isn’t. From my very smart friend Matt Dunne in Wired: Rural America’s Future Is Riding On A Cell Signal.