After 15 Years, Apple is Finally Adding an Iconic Feature to the iPhone

When Steve Jobs took the stage in 2007 and introduced the iPhone, he demonstrated several features that no one had ever seen before. One of them was the "swipe to unlock" feature, where the user simply dragged their finger across the screen to access their iPhone's home screen.

When Jobs demonstrated this feature, it was placed opposite the image of a clownfish, which has since become an iconic image. Iconic not only because it was many people's first impression of the original iPhone, but also because this wallpaper was never actually released on any version of iOS. Now, according to reports, some users are finding the iconic wallpaper in the latest beta of iOS 16. A tweet by Jack Roberts and later shared by Bloomberg's Mark Gurman shows the wallpaper as an option in the third beta. https://twitter.com/markgurman/status/1544744086082650114 Before anyone gets too excited, it's worth noting that just because something appears in a beta version of software doesn't mean it will be released to the public. It's also worth noting that the wallpaper didn't appear for every user with iOS 16 beta 3. All of this is an indication that Apple may not include this wallpaper in iOS 16. On the other hand, as Jobs himself demonstrated on stage, allowing users to choose the original wallpaper from the original iPhone is exactly the kind of thing Apple would (and should) do. Apple, more than almost any other company, understands the value of giving its customers pleasure. The new wallpaper alone isn't particularly remarkable. There are much more interesting options in the latest version of iOS. What matters is not how functional or beautiful the wallpaper is, but how people feel when they see it. If it seems silly for people to get excited about something that never made it into a product, just appeared on stage, fine, but some people are like that. People are interested in nostalgia. People like to relive their experiences and remember what they felt.