Give or take a headphone jack, the changes from one iPhone model to the next iPhone model can sometimes feel pretty minor. They get thinner, they get wider, and the guts get fancier, but is the latest and greatest iPhone really that different from the oldest and lamest iPhone? Obviously, the answer to that question is an unequivocal “yes,” but The Verge’s James Bareham decided to dig out a first-generation iPhone from 2007 just to see how its camera stacked up against the one crammed inside an iPhone 7 Plus.
Bareham’s first realization is that the camera app itself on the old iPhone is “so slow it’s mildly amusing,” adding that it’s “like a joke that goes on so long that it becomes funny again.” However, he says the actual camera is “less funny,” and its “nonexistent low-light capabilities are positively irritating.” Basically, the original camera is so crummy by today’s standards that Bareham quickly realizes that comparing it to the new one at all would be “totally pointless, unfair, and in some small fashion, a lot of fun.”
Speaking of fun, the big hook of Bareham’s piece is the actual photos, which do that cool slider thing so you can quickly transition from the old camera to the new one. Just look at this hamburger picture, which seems less like a comparison between two cameras and more like a comparison between your old glasses and your new glasses:
So yeah, the original iPhone looks like a piece of garbage by today’s standards, but at least it still had a place for you to plug in your headphones.