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> It had the revolutionary touch screen, yes,

I still remember seeing the demo of maps and the user being able to pan and zoom and was just floored. I really think the screen is what sold it then, even if it didn't have the apps, you could still browse the full internet on it which was a complete game changer.

IMO the screen + multi touch is what drove sales of the first iPhone.

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Agree on this. As a layman in Australia, i had a friend who was coming back from the USA and asked him to buy me an iPhone before its release in AU (late-2007 iirc, iPhone 3G launched in Australia in 2008) and promptly jailbroke it so i could get it on an Australian carrier.

When i whipped it out in public, take a photo at concerts, etc. random people would come up to me and ask me to play with it -- thats when i knew for sure Apple were on to something, a complete game changer that captured the attention of the public.

> you could still browse the full internet on it which was a complete game changer.

It had the screen and the software do do that but not the bandwidth. But I guess people were more patient back then.

It had WiFi, which was rare in mobile phones back then (carriers wouldn’t generally allow it)

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