Happy birthday original iPhone! You hit the world 4 years ago today in all your 2G, no App Store, aluminum-backed glory. And what a world it was, dominated by front-facing QWERTY in the Palm Treo and BlackBerry lines, and the beasts that were Windows Mobile. Palm didn’t think Apple could walk into the phone market, BlackBerry didn’t think anyone would want to type on glass, and Microsoft said they’d get no marketshare. Now, four years later, iPhone is one of the most dominant devices in the world, and the best selling smartphone on the market. And every one of their rivals (including Google who’s Android looked like a BlackBerry before the iPhone hit) have retooled or rebooted since.

Sigh. Our little baby is all grown up. Sniffle.

Do you remember what you owned before the iPhone? Did you get an original iPhone? Did you wait in line, or get crazy angry after Apple dropped the initial, exorbitant price? Did you upgrade it to iOS 2 and marvel at the App Store? Do you still have one?

While we cut the cake and hand out the party hats let us know your memories of the original iPhone, and the smartphone market before and since.

[Hat tip to iPhoneDownloadBlog and 52 Tiger, get your own iPhone cake]

What do you get for the man who mainstreamed the command-line with the Apple II, the GUI with the Mac, multitouch with iPhone, the tablet with iPad, digital music with iTunes, MP3 players with iPod, 3D animation with Pixar, etc. etc. incredibly etc.?

Our thanks and best wishes on the occasion of his 56th birthday. He’s wishing Steve Jobs peace, prosperity, health and happiness!

2 years ago today Apple launched the iTunes App Store and it’s safe to say the mobile world hasn’t been the same since.

1 year ago the iTunes App Store had 1+ billion downloads and 56,000+ apps, added turn-by-turn navigation, in-app purchases, and other new features.

Today there’s 5+ billion downloads and 225,000+ apps (including over 8500+ ipad apps), along with $1 billion paid out to developers, iAds, and multitask, among other things.

And it shows no sign of slowing down.

There are still issues with the app approval process to be sure, and Apple has wedged HTML5 every so slightly into the app spotlight. Never mind every competing OS, manufacturer, and carrier is falling all over themselves (and each other) to launch and grow app stores of their own — and some like Google’s and Palm’s are showing ever increasing and innovating results.

Overall, however, with the gateway device that is the iPod touch, the mobile mainstream converger that is the iPhone, and the bigger world that is the iPad, if anything it’s getting faster.

What will we see next, iOS apps on a new Apple TV? Replacing Dashboard and Front Row on the Mac? And what will Apple bring next March is iOS 5?

Jeff Scott from 148apps thinks iOS could hit 35 billion downloads next year. That sounds crazy, but 5 billion sounded crazy just a couple years ago. (And if it’s true, I think we’re going to need a bigger cake.)

So happy birthday iTunes App Store, congratulations on 2 great years. We can’t wait to see what you’ve got in store for us next.

Apple’s iTunes App Store launched on July 11, 2008 alongside the iPhone 3G and iPhone 2.0. Now, just a few days shy of its first birthday, iTunes is getting ready to celebrate by showcasing some of Apple’s favorite iPhone (and iPod touch) apps [iTunes link].

Split into two categories of 30, apps [iTunes link] and games [iTunes link], Apple’s picks are as diverse as they are interesting and seem to cover the gamut from major development studios to indies, premium priced to free, and as they put it are:

Part fun. Part function. Entirely amazing.

Did Apple include your favorite?

[via MacRumors]