{"id":23429,"date":"2026-09-11T16:15:24","date_gmt":"2026-09-11T15:15:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.arronhirst.com\/blog\/?p=23429"},"modified":"2026-09-11T16:15:24","modified_gmt":"2026-09-11T15:15:24","slug":"19-years-later-apple-has-somehow-come-full-circle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.arronhirst.com\/blog\/2026\/09\/11\/19-years-later-apple-has-somehow-come-full-circle\/","title":{"rendered":"19 Years Later, Apple Has Somehow Come Full Circle"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

There\u2019s something wonderfully familiar about this image<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/figure>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

On the bottom, we have 2007<\/strong>: Steve Jobs standing on stage with the original iPhone, holding up the little black rectangle that would completely change Apple \u2014 and the phone industry along with it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the top, we have 2026<\/strong>: Apple\u2019s latest generation of iPhone, now dramatically different in form, being held up in almost the exact same spirit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And honestly, the comparison works surprisingly well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The original iPhone<\/a><\/strong> was all about taking something people already understood \u2014 a phone \u2014 and turning it into something that felt completely new. It was smaller than the smartphones that came before it, had that enormous touchscreen, and introduced a completely different way of interacting with a mobile computer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fast-forward nearly two decades and Apple is doing something similar again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The iPhone Duo<\/strong><\/a> takes the familiar iPhone idea and essentially asks: what if the iPhone could become an iPad mini when you need it?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fold it up and you\u2019ve got a relatively compact iPhone. Open it and you\u2019ve suddenly got a much larger canvas for apps, video, multitasking and everything else you do on your phone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But it\u2019s the visual similarity in this image<\/a> that really caught my attention;<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The pose.
The phone being held up.
The simple background.
That feeling of \u201clook what we made.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Obviously, 2026 isn\u2019t 2007. Apple is a very different company, and the iPhone is a very different product.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But seeing the two moments side by side makes you realise just how far the original iPhone idea has travelled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

From a tiny black rectangle in 2007 to a folding iPhone in 2026.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not a bad 19-year journey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s something wonderfully familiar about this image.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2786,174,16],"tags":[3321,3672,4,3656,2016,3501,3581,3537,3671,3596,2584,560,3670],"class_list":["post-23429","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-apple-blog","category-blog","category-iphone","tag-3321","tag-3672","tag-apple","tag-folding","tag-history","tag-iphone","tag-iphone-duo","tag-john-ternus","tag-johns-moment","tag-reveal","tag-steve","tag-steve-jobs","tag-unveil"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arronhirst.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23429","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arronhirst.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arronhirst.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arronhirst.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arronhirst.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23429"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.arronhirst.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23429\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23430,"href":"https:\/\/www.arronhirst.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23429\/revisions\/23430"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arronhirst.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arronhirst.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arronhirst.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}