The iPhone (retrospectively referred to unofficially as the iPhone 2G, iPhone 1 or original iPhone) is the first iPhone model and the first

smartphone A smartphone is a portable computer device that combines mobile telephone and computing functions into one unit. They are distinguished from feature phones by their stronger hardware capabilities and extensive mobile operating systems, whic ...

designed and marketed by

Apple Inc. Apple Inc. is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, United States. Apple is the largest technology company by revenue (totaling in 2021) and, as of June 2022, is the world's biggest company ...

After years of rumors and speculation, it was officially announced on January 9, 2007, and it was released in the United States on June 29, 2007. Development of the iPhone as a product began in 2005 and continued in complete secrecy until its public unveiling. The device broke with prevailing mobile phone designs by eliminating most physical hardware buttons, and eschewing a stylus for its finger-friendly touch interface, featuring instead only a few physical buttons and a touch screen. It featured

quad-band In telecommunications, a multi-band device (including (2) dual-band, (3) tri-band, (4) quad-band and (5) penta-band devices) is a communication device (especially a mobile phone) that supports multiple radio frequency bands. All devices which ha ...

GSM The Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) is a standard developed by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) to describe the protocols for second-generation ( 2G) digital cellular networks used by mobile devices such ...

cellular connectivity with GPRS and

EDGE Edge or EDGE may refer to: Technology Computing * Edge computing, a network load-balancing system * Edge device, an entry point to a computer network * Adobe Edge, a graphical development application * Microsoft Edge, a web browser developed ...

support for

data transfer Data transmission and data reception or, more broadly, data communication or digital communications is the transfer and reception of data in the form of a digital bitstream or a digitized analog signal transmitted over a point-to-point or ...

, and it used continuous internet access and onboard processing to support features unrelated to voice communication. Its successor, the

iPhone 3G The iPhone 3G (also known as iPhone 2) is a smartphone that was designed and marketed by Apple Inc.; it is the second generation of iPhone, successor to the original iPhone, and was introduced on June 9, 2008, at the WWDC 2008 at the Mosco ...

, was announced on June 9, 2008. The iPhone quickly became Apple's most successful product, with later generations propelling it to become the most profitable company at the time. The introduction of the

App Store An App Store (or app marketplace) is a type of digital distribution platform for computer software called applications, often in a mobile context. Apps provide a specific set of functions which, by definition, do not include the running of the c ...

allowed established companies and startup developers to build careers and earn billions of dollars, via the platform, while providing consumers with new ways to access information and connect with other people. The iPhone largely appealed to the general public, as opposed to the business community

BlackBerry The blackberry is an edible fruit produced by many species in the genus ''Rubus'' in the family Rosaceae, hybrids among these species within the subgenus ''Rubus'', and hybrids between the subgenera ''Rubus'' and ''Idaeobatus''. The taxonomy ...

and IBM focused on at the time, and, by integrating existing technology and expanding on usability, the iPhone turned the smartphone industry "on its head".

History

In 1999, Apple CEO Steve Jobs envisioned an Apple

touchscreen A touchscreen or touch screen is the assembly of both an input ('touch panel') and output ('display') device. The touch panel is normally layered on the top of an electronic visual display of an information processing system. The display is ofte ...

product that the user could interact with directly with their fingers rather than using a stylus. The stylus was a common tool for many existing touchscreen devices at the time including Apple's own Newton, launched in 1993. He decided that the device would require a triple layered

capacitive A capacitor is a device that stores electrical energy in an electric field by virtue of accumulating electric charges on two close surfaces insulated from each other. It is a passive electronic component with two terminals. The effect of a c ...

multi-touch

touch screen A touchscreen or touch screen is the assembly of both an input ('touch panel') and output ('display') device. The touch panel is normally layered on the top of an electronic visual display of an information processing system. The display is ofte ...

, a very new and advanced technology at the time. This helped with removing the physical keyboard and mouse, the same as was common at the time for

tablet computer A tablet computer, commonly shortened to tablet, is a mobile device, typically with a mobile operating system and touchscreen display processing circuitry, and a rechargeable battery in a single, thin and flat package. Tablets, being com ...

s, human machine interfaces and point of sale systems. Jobs recruited a group of Apple engineers to investigate the idea as a side project. When Jobs reviewed the prototype and its

user interface In the industrial design field of human–computer interaction, a user interface (UI) is the space where interactions between humans and machines occur. The goal of this interaction is to allow effective operation and control of the machine f ...

, he saw the potential in developing the concept into a mobile phone to compete with already established brands in the then emerging market for touch screen phones. The whole effort was called Project Purple 2 and began in 2005. Apple purchased the "iphone.org" domain in December 1999. Apple created the device during a secretive and unprecedented collaboration with

Cingular Wireless AT&T Mobility LLC, also known as AT&T Wireless and marketed as simply AT&T, is an American telecommunications company. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of AT&T Inc. and provides wireless services in the United States. AT&T Mobility is the t ...

, now part of

AT&T AT&T Inc. is an American multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered at Whitacre Tower in Downtown Dallas, Texas. It is the world's largest telecommunications company by revenue and the third largest provider of mobile te ...

. The development cost of the collaboration was estimated to have been $150 million over a thirty-month period. Apple rejected the " design by committee" approach that had yielded the

Motorola ROKR E1 The Motorola ROKR (), the first version of which was informally known as the iTunes phone, was a series of mobile phones from Motorola, part of a 4LTR line developed before the spin out of Motorola Mobility. ROKR models were released starting in ...

, a largely unsuccessful collaboration with

Motorola Motorola, Inc. () was an American multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, United States. After having lost $4.3 billion from 2007 to 2009, the company split into two independent public companies, Motorol ...

. Instead, Cingular Wireless gave Apple the liberty to develop the iPhone's hardware and software

in-house Outsourcing is an agreement in which one company hires another company to be responsible for a planned or existing activity which otherwise is or could be carried out internally, i.e. in-house, and sometimes involves transferring employees and ...

. The original iPhone was introduced by Steve Jobs on January 9, 2007 in a

keynote address A keynote in public speaking is a talk that establishes a main underlying theme. In corporate or commercial settings, greater importance is attached to the delivery of a keynote speech or keynote address. The keynote establishes the framework f ...

at the

Macworld Conference & Expo Macworld/iWorld was an information technology trade show with conference tracks dedicated to the Apple Macintosh platform. It was held annually in the United States during January. Originally ''Macworld Expo'' and then ''Macworld Conference & Expos ...

held in Moscone West in San Francisco, California. In his address, Jobs said, "This is a day that I have been looking forward to for two and a half years," and that "today, Apple is going to reinvent the phone". Jobs introduced the iPhone as a combination of three devices: a "widescreen iPod with touch controls"; a "revolutionary mobile phone"; and a "breakthrough Internet communicator". Six weeks prior to the iPhone's release, the plastic screen was replaced with glass, after Jobs was upset that the screen of the prototype he was carrying in his pocket had been scratched by his keys. The quick switch led to a bidding process for a manufacturing contractor that was won by

Foxconn Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., Ltd., trading as Hon Hai Technology Group in China and Taiwan and Foxconn internationally, is a Taiwanese multinational electronics contract manufacturer established in 1974 with headquarters in Tucheng, New ...

, which had just opened up a new wing of its

Shenzhen Shenzhen (; ; ; ), also historically known as Sham Chun, is a major sub-provincial city and one of the special economic zones of China. The city is located on the east bank of the Pearl River estuary on the central coast of southern province ...

factory complex specifically for this bid.

Release

IPhone First Generation 8GB (3677961514)

The iPhone was released in the United States on June 29, 2007 at the price of $499 for the 4 GB model and $599 for the 8 GB model, both requiring a 2-year contract. Thousands of people were reported to have waited outside

Apple An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple trees are cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus ''Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, where its wild ancestor, ' ...

and

retail stores days before the device's launch; many stores reported stock shortages within an hour of availability. To avoid repeating the problems of the PlayStation 3 launch, which caused

burglaries Burglary, also called breaking and entering and sometimes housebreaking, is the act of entering a building or other areas without permission, with the intention of committing a criminal offence. Usually that offence is theft, robbery or murder ...

and even a shooting, off-duty police officers were hired to guard stores overnight. It was later made available in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

, the

Republic of Ireland Ireland ( ga, Éire ), also known as the Republic of Ireland (), is a country in north-western Europe consisting of 26 of the 32 Counties of Ireland, counties of the island of Ireland. The capital and largest city is Dublin, on the eastern ...

, and

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

in November 2007. Six out of ten Americans surveyed said they knew before its release that the iPhone was coming. First iPhone Macworld 2007 DSCF1286

Post-release

The iPhone's main competitors in both consumer and business markets were considered to be the

LG Prada The LG KE850, also known as the LG Prada, is a touchscreen mobile phone made by LG Electronics. It was first announced on December 12, 2006 and was created in collaboration with Italian luxury designer Prada. It was made official in a press rele ...

LG Viewty The LG-KU990 or LG-KE990 (known and marketed as the LG Viewty) is a high-end mobile phone manufactured by LG Electronics, released in August 2007. It has a resistive touchscreen and was specially marketed for its camera, being the first touchscreen ...

Samsung Ultra Smart F700 The SGH-F700, marketed as the Ultra Smart F700, is a mobile phone manufactured by Samsung. Using Vodafone as its network provider, the phone was first introduced at the 3GSM World Congress that was held in February 2007. Sales to the European m ...

, Nokia N95, Nokia E61i, Palm Treo 750,

Palm Centro The Palm Centro is a smartphone marketed by Palm, Inc. beginning its release on October 14, 2007 offering the functionality of the larger Treo 755p in a smaller size. The Centro is one of the last devices to run the Palm OS operating system. T ...

, HTC Touch,

Sony Ericsson W960 The Sony Ericsson W960i is a 3G phone that Sony Ericsson announced in June 2007, as an upgrade to the W950. Features The W960 is a successor to the W950, and belongs to the Walkman series of phones. Its features include 8 GB of integrate ...

, Sony Ericsson C905 and

. The iPod Touch, a touchscreen device with the media and internet abilities and interface of the iPhone but without the ability to connect to a cellular network for phone functions or internet access, was released on September 5, 2007. At the same time, Apple significantly dropped the price of the 8 GB model (from $599 to $399, still requiring a 2-year contract with AT&T) while discontinuing the 4 GB model. Apple sold the one millionth iPhone five days later, or 74 days after the release. After receiving "hundreds of emails" upset about the price drop, Apple gave store credit to early adopters. A 16 GB model was released on February 5, 2008 for $499, the original launch price of the 4 GB model. Apple released an SDK on March 6, 2008, allowing developers to create the apps that would be available starting in iPhone OS version 2.0, a free upgrade for iPhone users. On June 9, Apple announced the

, which began shipping July 11. The original iPhone was discontinued on July 15; total sales volume came to 6,124,000 units.

Hardware

External hardware (screens, materials, etc)

The iPhone's back cover is made out of

aluminum Aluminium (aluminum in American and Canadian English) is a chemical element with the symbol Al and atomic number 13. Aluminium has a density lower than those of other common metals, at approximately one third that of steel. It ha ...

, a soft metal. The iPhone's screen is a 320x480 resolution LCD screen at 163 ppi that measures about 3.5 inches diagonally, much bigger than other phones at the time, and the iPhone was the first mobile phone with multi-touch technology. The rear camera on the iPhone has a resolution of 2

megapixels In digital imaging, a pixel (abbreviated px), pel, or picture element is the smallest addressable element in a raster image, or the smallest point in an all points addressable display device. In most digital display devices, pixels are the sm ...

and also features

geotagging Geotagging, or GeoTagging, is the process of adding geographical identification metadata to various media such as a geotagged photograph or video, websites, SMS messages, QR Codes or RSS feeds and is a form of geospatial metadata. This data u ...

. The iPhone has four total buttons and a single switch: a power and sleep button, a volume up and volume down button, a silent/ringer switch, and a home button positioned in the bottom center of the face of the phone. The home button, when pressed, would send the user back to the

home screen A home screen, homescreen, or start screen, is the main screen on a device or computer program. Home screens are not identical because users rearrange icons as they please, and home screens often differ across mobile operating systems. Almost ...

from whatever app they were currently using.

Internal hardware (motherboard, system-on-chip, etc.)

The iPhone featured a

Samsung The Samsung Group (or simply Samsung) ( ko, 삼성 ) is a South Korean multinational manufacturing conglomerate headquartered in Samsung Town, Seoul, South Korea. It comprises numerous affiliated businesses, most of them united under the ...

32-bit

ARM In human anatomy, the arm refers to the upper limb in common usage, although academically the term specifically means the upper arm between the glenohumeral joint (shoulder joint) and the elbow joint. The distal part of the upper limb between th ...

microprocessor A microprocessor is a computer processor where the data processing logic and control is included on a single integrated circuit, or a small number of integrated circuits. The microprocessor contains the arithmetic, logic, and control circ ...

underclocked Underclocking, also known as downclocking, is modifying a computer or electronic circuit's timing settings to run at a lower clock rate than is specified. Underclocking is used to reduce a computer's power consumption, increase battery life, redu ...

from its stock 620

MHz The hertz (symbol: Hz) is the unit of frequency in the International System of Units (SI), equivalent to one event (or cycle) per second. The hertz is an SI derived unit whose expression in terms of SI base units is s−1, meaning that one he ...

to a slower 412 MHz to increase battery life. The iPhone also included several sets of sensors, including an

accelerometer An accelerometer is a tool that measures proper acceleration. Proper acceleration is the acceleration (the rate of change of velocity) of a body in its own instantaneous rest frame; this is different from coordinate acceleration, which is acc ...

, a

proximity sensor A proximity sensor is a sensor able to detect the presence of nearby objects without any physical contact. A proximity sensor often emits an electromagnetic field or a beam of electromagnetic radiation (infrared, for instance), and looks for ...

, and an

ambient light sensor An ambient light sensor is a component in smartphones, notebooks, other mobile devices, automotive displays and LCD TVs. It is a photodetector that is used to sense the amount of ambient light present, and appropriately dim the device's screen to ...

. Similar to the iPod Touch, the iPhone also featured a 3.5 millimetre auxiliary headphone jack. The phone also had a 3.7 V 1400 mAh Lithium-ion battery built in it.

Software

At the time of its unveiling in January, Steve Jobs claimed: "iPhone runs OS X" and runs "desktop-class applications", but at the time of the iPhone's release, the operating system was renamed "iPhone OS". The original iPhone supported three major versions of the operating system before it was discontinued:

iPhone OS 1 iPhone OS 1, commonly referred to as iOS 1, is the first major release of iOS, Apple's mobile operating system. No official name was given on its initial release; Apple marketing literature simply stated that the iPhone runs a version of Appl ...

, 2, and 3. The last update the original iPhone received was iPhone OS 3.1.3, as iPhone OS 3.2 was intended for the iPad.

Software history

The original operating system for the original iPhone,

, featured Visual Voicemail, multi-touch gestures,

HTML The HyperText Markup Language or HTML is the standard markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser. It can be assisted by technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and scripting languages such as JavaSc ...

email Electronic mail (email or e-mail) is a method of exchanging messages ("mail") between people using electronic devices. Email was thus conceived as the electronic ( digital) version of, or counterpart to, mail, at a time when "mail" mean ...

, Apple's Safari web browser, threaded

text messaging Text messaging, or texting, is the act of composing and sending electronic messages, typically consisting of alphabetic and numeric characters, between two or more users of mobile devices, desktops/laptops, or another type of compatible comput ...

, an " iPod" music and video player app, a dedicated

YouTube YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second mo ...

app and a Maps app powered by

Google Maps Google Maps is a web mapping platform and consumer application offered by Google. It offers satellite imagery, aerial photography, street maps, 360° interactive panoramic views of streets ( Street View), real-time traffic conditions, and rou ...

. It also included basic Phone/contacts, Calendar, Photos, Stocks, Weather, Clock, Calculator, Notes, and Settings apps. However, many features like MMS, apps, and

copy and paste In human–computer interaction and user interface design, cut, copy, and paste are related commands that offer an interprocess communication technique for transferring data through a computer's user interface. The ''cut'' command removes ...

were not supported at release, leading hackers jailbreaking their phones to add these features. Software updates from Apple gradually added these functions. A v1.1 update alongside the introduction of the iPod Touch in September 2007 included an

iTunes Store The iTunes Store is a digital media store operated by Apple Inc. It opened on April 28, 2003, as a result of Steve Jobs' push to open a digital marketplace for music. As of April 2020, iTunes offered 60 million songs, 2.2 million apps, 25,00 ...

app that was the first new app to be added to the system. iPhone OS 2 was released on July 11, 2008, at the same time as the release of the

, and introduced Apple's

supporting native third-party applications, Microsoft Exchange support, push e-mail, and other enhancements. iPhone OS 3 was released on June 17, 2009, alongside the iPhone 3GS, and introduced copy and paste functionality, Spotlight search for the

, and new features for the YouTube app. iPhone OS 3 was available for the original iPhone as well as the iPhone 3G and 3GS. However, not all features of iPhone OS 3 (like MMS in the Messages app) were supported on the original iPhone. iPhone OS 3.1.3 was the last version of iPhone OS (now

iOS iOS (formerly iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system created and developed by Apple Inc. exclusively for its hardware. It is the operating system that powers many of the company's mobile devices, including the iPhone; the term also include ...

) to be released for this phone in February 2010, which never got the full iPhone OS 3 feature set because iPhone OS 3.2 was intended for the iPad. Almost all apps released after the release of iOS 6 in late September 2012 do not run on the original iPhone, as the software development kit (SDK) was changed to no longer allow the "targeting" (minimum) of iOS versions older than 4.3 (including 3.x), or ARMv6 devices (first two generations).

Reception

The original iPhone received largely positive reviews. Only four writers were given review models of the original iPhone:

David Pogue David Welch Pogue (born March 9, 1963) is an American technology and science writer and TV presenter. He is an Emmy-winning correspondent for ''CBS News Sunday Morning'' and author of the "Crowdwise" column in ''The New York Times'' Smarter Livi ...

of ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'', Walt Mossberg of ''

The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...

'',

Steven Levy Steven Levy (born 1951) is an American journalist and Editor at Large for ''Wired'' who has written extensively for publications on computers, technology, cryptography, the internet, cybersecurity, and privacy. He is the author of the 1984 book ...

of ''

Newsweek ''Newsweek'' is an American weekly online news magazine co-owned 50 percent each by Dev Pragad, its president and CEO, and Johnathan Davis, who has no operational role at ''Newsweek''. Founded as a weekly print magazine in 1933, it was widely ...

'', and Ed Baig of ''

USA Today ''USA Today'' (stylized in all uppercase) is an American daily middle-market newspaper and news broadcasting company. Founded by Al Neuharth on September 15, 1982, the newspaper operates from Gannett's corporate headquarters in Tysons, Virgi ...

''. ''The New York Times'' and ''The Wall Street Journal'' published positive, but cautious, reviews of the iPhone, their primary criticisms being the relatively slow speed of the

's 2.5G

network and the phone's inability to connect using 3G services. ''The Wall Street Journal''s technology columnist, Walt Mossberg, concluded that "despite some flaws and feature omissions, the iPhone is, on balance, a beautiful and breakthrough handheld computer." ''

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, ...

'' magazine named it the Invention of the Year in 2007.

References

External links

* – official site {{Apple * iPhone 1 Mobile phones introduced in 2007 Computer-related introductions in 2007 Products and services discontinued in 2010 Discontinued flagship smartphones