Steve Jobs announced the iPhone to the world on 9 January 2007. This iconic product became a sensational success and propelled Apple to become the most valuable company on Earth. It created a new product category, the smartphone, which has become the must-have item for people in all nations. It launched a platform for secondary markets in apps, music and videos. Steve Jobs, Sir Jonathan Ive and the design team at Apple deserve the tremendous credit they get for this seismic innovation. But as the economists, Marianna Mazzucato and Tim Harford, have shown, the iPhone could not have been a success without at least 12 technology innovations on which it is dependent.
