On their first attempt, the team at Apple managed to stumble upon the perfect form factor, the perfect incarnation of the modern smartphone. Smartphones had, of course, existed for several years previous to the iPhone, but the standard form of the smartphone as we know it today—no physical keyboard, a single slab of screen, a “black mirror” that is both a reflection of, and a conduit for all of our hopes and desires—they nailed it on the first try. And that’s quite remarkable. There’s a very good reason why, to this day, almost all smartphones essentially look like that first iPhone.
