IPhone users: Five years later, the device is more than a machine

Five years ago today, the original iPhone went on sale. Since then, to its growing legions of users, the iPhone has become less a gadget or machine, and more a personal means of relating to a wider and richer world.

Five years ago today, the original iPhone went on sale. Since then, to its growing legions of users, the iPhone has become less a gadget or machine, and more a personal means of relating to a wider and richer world.
To assess the iPhone's impact, we asked a group of users, many of them IT professionals, one question: How has the iPhone changed the way you (personally or your organization) live or work?

There are common themes that emerge from these experiences. Repeatedly, users say the iPhone lets them be in "constant contact" with colleagues, family and friends. "Contact" can mean being able to respond to someone, or collaborate on a decision, or share -- at least by word or image -- in a new experience. They have "access" to vastly more information. And they have that access whenever they want it, or need it.

MORE: The iPhone turns 5 today
The iPhone has become greater than the sum of its parts: a portable, always-connected computer, with the intimacy of a touch interface, packed with a set of highly personal apps and data, an ever-present node on the Web, integrated camera, with voice phone calls only one mode of personal communication. Together, these parts have created a new "mode of being," at once intensely personal and highly public.

Here are their iWitness answers.

"The ways the iPhone has changed, in a remarkably good and completely unexpected way, both my personal and professional life, are innumerable. Personally, it (and the iPad even more so) has allowed me to be in constant contact (for better or worse) with family and friends around the world. ... A perfect example is the fun I had traveling around Italy a few years ago. Taking pictures on the iPhone and being able to post instantly to Twitter, Flickr, my blog, family was an amazing experience. Sharing like that in real time was eye opening. The iPhone has literally opened my world and helped me be better informed, more entertained and, to be honest, 'happier' than life before the iPhone."