iPhone turns 10: Apple CEO Tim Cook promises 'best is yet to come' for revolutionary smartphone

The iPhone 8 is expected this year and has been rumoured to bring some of the biggest changes yet

Tim Cook has said that the “best” of the iPhone is still yet to come, as Apple celebrates its 10th birthday.

The first phone was introduced on 9 January 2007 at a Macworld event in San Francisco, by Steve Jobs. The late Apple co-founder described the pocket computer as three products in one – “a widescreen iPod with touch controls, a revolutionary mobile phone and a breakthrough internet communications device”.

Now, 10 years later, the company is celebrating the anniversary by promising that the upcoming phones – presumably including the much-rumoured iPhone 8 – will bring updates better than those seen in the phones since 2007.

“iPhone is an essential part of our customers' lives, and today more than ever it is redefining the way we communicate, entertain, work and live,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, as the company celebrated the launch. “iPhone set the standard for mobile computing in its first decade and we are just getting started. The best is yet to come.”

Apple’s marketing head, Phil Schiller, echoed the claim that there was much more to come with the iPhone.

"iPhone is how we make voice and FaceTime calls, how we shoot and share Live Photos and 4K videos, how we listen to streaming music, how we use social media, how we play games, how we get directions and find new places, how we pay for things, how we surf the web, do email, manage our contacts and calendars, how we listen to podcasts, watch TV, movies and sports, and how we manage our fitness and health,” he said.

“iPhone has become all of these things and more. And I believe we are just getting started.”

Apple’s iPhone 8, which is expected to be unveiled this September, has been rumoured to bring bigger changes than perhaps any other iPhone. Those will include a new screen that might stretch all the way across the front of the phone, the removal of the iconic home button, and new screen technologies.

That phone has been referred to as the 10th anniversary phone, and it will be the 10th major iteration of Apple’s smartphone.

Apple has traditionally avoided dwelling too much on its own history and anniversaries. But it has in recent years celebrated both the 40th birthday of Apple and the 30th anniversary of the first Mac, running advertising campaigns in both cases.