The problem with tech is that the really cool stuff doesn’t usually turn up.

From the jetpacks we were promised as kids to Intel’s latest concept PCs, what we actually end up with tends to be considerably more mundane – Ryanair instead of jetpacks, or incremental improvements on kit we’ve already got.

The iPhone was the exception. It was the jetpack, the flying car, the house on the moon and the food in pill form, the outrageous promise actually delivered.

Where other phones had clearly been made, the iPhone could have been recovered from the wreckage at Roswell, evidence of an alien civilisation who’d never discovered cut, copy and paste.

The iPhone turned five yesterday, and I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that it completely transformed mobile tech. Before iPhones we had Orange SPVs and shoebox-sized BlackBerries. Now, we get goodies such as Sony’s Xperia S, Android powerhouses and a really nice mobile Windows.