The milestone has prompted widespread retrospectives on the company's extraordinary arc. From the Apple II that helped launch the personal computer revolution, through the 1984 Macintosh that introduced graphical computing to the mainstream, to the iMac's translucent revival of a nearly-dead company, each era reshaped expectations of what technology could be.

But it was the iPhone in 2007 that truly transformed Apple from a computer company into the defining technology company of the 21st century. The device created entirely new industries, destroyed others, and put a supercomputer in billions of pockets worldwide.

Apple has said it believes the iPhone will still exist in 50 years, even as the company pushes into new territories with Vision Pro spatial computing and its own AI initiatives. The anniversary comes during a period of regulatory pressure, with antitrust actions in multiple countries and new privacy rules reshaping how the company operates.