Apple's new iPhone looks like a machine from the future, a device lent to us from the Jetsons era.

It's an impressive gadget, but much of the buzz can be attributed to Steve Jobs' showmanship, which has been startling the tech world for over two decades.

His introduction of the first Mac computer in 1984 was filled with cosmic superlatives, but the machine now looks older than a horse-drawn carriage. His introduction of the first iPod in 2001 looks nearly as dated.

How long before the iPhone, which already has certain quarters drooling, looks just as stale? As you gawk at Apple's latest toy, just remember that once upon a time, these cobwebby products looked mind-bogglingly new.

The 2006 iPhone

It's an iPod, a mini-computer and a phone. The sleek touchscreen zooms in on Web pages like something out of "Minority Report." Jobs plays a clip from a Ben Stiller movie on the phone, takes a call, and shuffles through his music library. All on a single device.

The crowd eats it up, but then, they always do.

In a few years, our future selves will turn down our transporting-time traveling iBrains, and take a moment to marvel at how cute we were, back in 2007, when the iPhone seemed modern.

The 2001 iPod

Jobs has lost the hair and put on a few pounds, but he's held onto his mojo. During this presentation, he runs through the portable music players available — a bulky Discman, clumsy flash drives — and then explains how he's going to blow them out of the water.

"The coolest thing about iPod is that your entire music library fits in your pocket," he says.

Six years later, it's hard to picture walking around without your entire music library in your pocket. How can you leave home without 14 Elvis Costello albums at the ready? What if you need to hear "Moods for Moderns" at a moment's notice?

Jobs spends time cooing over the iPod's teeny frame, but to our modern eyes it looks bulky and bloated, miles away from its matchstick Nano incarnation. (Which itself will look ridiculous in six years.)

The 1984 Mac

A young, floppy-haired Steve Jobs, (who looks alarmingly like Tucker Carlson) unveils a prehistoric Mac, complete with unironic use of the "Chariots of Fire" song.

Some examples of the amazing things you can do with a Mac: Use different fonts! Play chess! Make the computer speak in a robot-with-a-tracheotomy voice!

Jobs brags that you can actually lift the Mac, although the only part that looks small today is the wallet-sized screen.

This computer changed the landscape back then, but now it's a prime example of how quickly technology moves.

asap reporter Sam Dolnick wants an iPhone. Bad.

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