On the 10th anniversary of the iPhone, mobile games and the App Store have also gone through the "9-year itch"

"Apple has become the most important company in gaming today."

Today (June 29) marks the tenth anniversary of the official release of the Apple mobile phone. Ten years ago, the first generation of iPhone went on sale, and the subsequent iPhone 4 was sought after by the public and became a classic in the hearts of a generation. Later, Apple mobile phones have continued to make breakthroughs in recent years.

Apple mobile phone has been around for 10 years, and its sales have increased from the initial 1.4 million units to 211 million units last year. Apple's market value also rose, reaching US$766.7 billion, making it the world's most valuable company, three times higher than the combined market value of Tencent and Alibaba . In the past 10 years, thanks to the sales of Apple mobile phones and the operation of the App Store, Apple has even subverted the global gaming industry.

The first generation of iPhone went on sale in 2007. “This product is five years ahead of other mobile phones.”

On June 29, 2007, the first generation of iPhone was officially launched. At that time, the iPhone was still very weak in the market, and Nokia still had a market share of more than 30%. Although there was a gap of nearly half a year between the announcement and the product launch, people were full of anticipation and excitement for this phone with only one physical button on the front and the ability to change pictures in real time. The birth of the first generation iPhone was extremely disruptive for mobile phone users who were accustomed to straight keyboards and small screens at the time.

The 3.5-inch screen size, 4GB and 8GB capacity, iOS operating system, multi-touch screen, two-finger zoom, and removal of the physical keyboard all caused a huge response and discussion at the time. All of these were complete innovations for the market at the time.

In the words of Steve Jobs at the time, this product was five years ahead of other mobile phones.

iPhone 4: This is something special to show off

It is true that the first generation of iPhone did not gain widespread popularity in the mass market until the iPhone 4 was officially launched on June 7, 2010. This move broke the hesitation of most users about Apple phones. From then on, Apple embarked on the fast track of its own development in the era of smartphones.

On June 7, 2010, the classic iPhone 4 was officially released. This was also the last time that Jobs stood at a press conference to introduce a new generation of iPhone. On September 25, 2010, iPhone 4 was officially launched in China, and in many areas, people lined up all night to buy the iPhone. Since then, iPhone has become synonymous with youth, fashion, technology and innovation. It was also from this generation of iPhone 4 that Apple phone cases, films, charging cables, earphones and peripheral products began to gradually form a complete industrial chain.

iPhone 4 is the biggest success in the history of Apple mobile phones and users are crazy about it. At the same time, after entering the Chinese market, Apple's mobile phone market share began to expand rapidly. By 2011, iOS's market share had ranked second, reaching 24%.

iPhone4s—iPhone7s: Today’s Apple phones seem to have lost their magic?

On October 4, 2011, Tim Cook , the new CEO of Apple who succeeded Jobs, appeared at the new product launch conference and launched a new Apple mobile phone - iPhone 4S. Although this phone has only been optimized and improved in terms of Siri intelligent voice and cloud services, and only minor changes have been made to the appearance, this phone is still highly sought after in the market. With the launch of iPhone 4S, Apple's sales in one quarter broke the company's own record and the entire smartphone industry's record.

On the second day after the iPhone 4S launch, that is, on October 5 of the same year, Jobs was "taken away by God" due to illness.

Since then, Apple has gradually launched subsequent series of iPhones with an update frequency of about once a year. In September 2012, iPhone 5 was officially released. The screen size was expanded from 3.5 inches to 4 inches. This was the first Cook-style iPhone. Apple also officially shifted from the genius era of Jobs to the practical era of Cook.

The iPhone 5s and iPhone 5C released in September 2013 have obviously lost the halo of previous Apple phones in market reviews. Although the 5s led the trend of gold color and fingerprint recognition, it also resisted the voice of "Apple's lack of innovation."

In 2014, Apple released the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, and embarked on the path of "bigger than bigger". The screen size increased from 4 inches to 4.7 inches and 5.5 inches. This generation of Apple abandoned the small screen and entered the era of large screen. The phone's capacity has also been expanded to 128GB.

There is no doubt that iPhone 4 has the best sales in the past decade. In the past two years, Apple mobile phones seem to have hit the ceiling and started to weaken. The public's pursuit of Apple is no longer as crazy as before, and what has changed accordingly is the sales and revenue of the iPhone. Judging from the first quarter financial report released by Apple this year, although both revenue and profit have increased, the sales of iPhone and iPad have both declined. The sales of iPhone were 50.76 million units, lower than the 51.19 million units in the same period last year.

The decline in iPhone sales can be clearly felt in China. Domestic mobile phones such as OPPO, vivo , Xiaomi, Huawei, and Meizu achieved a great leap forward in sales last year, and Apple ranked only fourth. In addition to the decline in sales, Apple's revenue also declined. On October 26, 2016, Apple released its fourth quarter financial report for the 2016 fiscal year, with annual revenue and profits declining for the first time in 15 years, with revenue in Greater China falling sharply by 30%.

But the iPhone is still the benchmark in the smartphone industry

"From the first generation iPhone to today's latest iPhone 7 Plus, all smartphones still use it as their own evaluation standard, which is amazing!" Apple's official website released a tenth anniversary commemorative article some time ago. In ten years, the iPhone's screen size has grown from 3.5 inches to 5.5 inches, the 2-megapixel camera has become a 12-megapixel camera, and sales have increased from 1.4 million units to 211 million units last year.

Apple is still innovating, but its innovations are not as obvious as they were with the iPhone 4. But it is undeniable that the iPhone is still the benchmark in the current smartphone industry. Whether it is the model, hardware technology, software ecology, etc., many Android phones need to find inspiration from the iPhone and even follow the trend of the iPhone.

iPhone has gone through the "nine-year itch" with mobile games

In 2008, the Apple App Store was launched, and Apple launched 500 mobile applications on this platform. Three months later, the number of applications surged to 3,000 and the number of downloads exceeded 100 million; in April 2009, the number of application downloads exceeded 1 billion; ten years later, there are 2.1 million applications in the App Store.

When the App Store was launched, Apple released a free SDK to the public for the first time, turning the application platform into a gaming platform. Since then, the Apple App Store and mobile games have had an inextricable relationship.

1. iPhone brought disruptive gaming operations

In the early days of Apple introducing game applications, in order to intuitively illustrate the functions of the SDK and the experience of iOS game development, Apple demonstrated a flight shooting game called "Touch Fighter". How do you control a game that “does not require a handle, does not require buttons, and gets rid of the small screen frame”? Apple has the answer.

The gradual development of mobile games only came about with the advent of smartphones. On the mobile side, the development of the iPhone has given mobile games a lot of room for imagination. Compared with previous console games, mobile games have shorter development times, lower costs, and a wider audience. In addition to opening up the mobile game market, mobile smart devices have seen exciting applications in mobile games, from buttons to touch screens, and later on gravity sensing, 3D touch , voice control, LBS and other technologies. Without the improvement of these technologies, games such as "Pokemon GO" and "Eighth Note" would not have stood out.

2. Create a new profit-sharing model: developers take 70%, Apple takes 30%

In 2010, China's mobile game revenue was approximately RMB 2 billion, of which more than 40% went into the pockets of operators in the form of SMS channel fees. The emergence of Apple iPhone reversed this situation. In terms of revenue, Apple App Store adopts a revenue-sharing model, with game developers taking 70% and Apple taking 30%, and the revenue is settled on a monthly basis. At the same time, there are no hosting fees, promotion fees, location placement fees, credit card fees, handling fees, etc. during the promotion and consumption process. This model brings new hope and a healthier development ecology to the profit sharing and settlement of mobile games.

3. The birth and gradual prosperity of "free value-added games"

The App Store platform sets a minimum threshold of 99 cents for games. Apart from that, there is no fixed price. Game developers can set any price or provide their games for free. So after a gradual price war, a "freemium" model began to take shape, providing games for free and generating revenue through embedded advertising or in-app purchases.

The concept of "free to play" has gradually gained popularity, and the charging model has also changed from console games to mobile games. As a result, many game manufacturers began to try this model, such as KING, Activision Blizzard , and the vast majority of game manufacturers in China. Until now, most domestic games have adopted the "free value-added" model.

4. The love-hate relationship between game publishers and the App Store ecosystem

China's game "businessmen" have always been quite savvy. Faced with the closed ecosystem and numerous rules and regulations of the App Store, they eventually found a loophole. The very familiar gray areas of play such as manipulating rankings , self-recharging, and cutting payments have indeed brought a lot of impact to Apple's ecosystem. At the Apple conference not long ago, Apple also stated that it will cancel the best-selling list in the next system and simplify the homepage display of the free and paid lists. There is a lot of love and hate between AppStore and game publishers.

As of this year, the App Store has been "coexisting" with mobile games for nine years. Of course, it is undeniable that games have always been the bulk of the App Store's revenue, driving the growth of the entire ecosystem's revenue. This can be felt from the fact that all kinds of mobile games are always at the top of the best-selling list. In 2016, Apple's App Store's total revenue exceeded US$28.5 billion. On New Year's Day 2017, users spent nearly US$240 million on the Apple Store, setting a record.

Apple brought users to mobile games, and mobile games brought high revenue to Apple.