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On June 29, Apple celebrates the 10th anniversary of the iPhone, a device all but culturally synonymous with the word smartphone. I was lucky enough to preview one the day before Steve Jobs introduced it at MacWorld in January 2007. Apple senior vice-president of marketing Phil Schiller laid a silver-framed black rectangle on a coffee table, then asked me what I saw. I told him I saw a piece of glass in a metal case. He told me that's what Apple wants you to see — in "off" mode, that's exactly what it is. But turn it on and the...

Apple CEO Steve Jobs holds up an iPhone at the MacWorld Conference in San Francisco on Jan. 9, 2007. (Paul Sakuma / Associated Press) Steve Jobs unveiled the first iPhone in January, 2007, before an adoring congregation, in his signature “Sermon on the Mount” style. On June 29, it became available to the public. Ten years later, the phone has spread like Christianity. There are 1 billion iPhones in use, and the device represents “the pinnacle product of all capitalism,” as Brian Merchant argues in his new book, “The One Device: The Secret History of the iPhone.” Merchant calls the...