The iPhone turns ten

NO PRODUCT in recent history has changed people’s lives more. Without the iPhone, ride-hailing, photo-sharing, instant messaging and other essentials of modern life would be less widespread. Shorn of cumulative sales of 1.2bn devices and revenues of $1trn, Apple would not hold the crown of the world’s largest listed company. Thousands of software developers would be poorer, too: the apps they have written for the smartphone make them more than $20bn annually.By any measure, the iPhone, which hit the shelves in America ten years ago this week, has been an extraordinary success. But it is also exceptional for a less obvious reason: it has allowed Apple to become the only consumer-oriented technology giant whose business model does not rely on collecting reams of personal data, usually in order to target advertising to users. Tim Cook, Apple’s chief executive, has made the company’s stance part of his sales pitch, calling privacy a fundamental human right. That distinctive approach may not be sustainable, however. Indeed, how Apple deals with data will be more important in determining its success over the next ten years than the endless questions over the firm’s ambitions for TV sets or cars.