On January 9, 2007, Steven Paul Jobs came on stage for the Macworld San Francisco 2007 Keynote Address and made a speech that sparked the iPhone’s history. He talked about revolutionary technologies Apple achieved over the years and said: “Every once in a while, a revolutionary product comes along that changes everything.”
The crowd cheered in anticipation, watching the words of the visionary tech giant founder. Steve Jobs said Apple was introducing three products: a widescreen iPod touch with controls, a breakthrough communications device, and a revolutionary mobile phone. Everyone cheered, waiting to see what cool tech was coming. However, in a shocking twist of events, Steve told the crowd that the devices he listed were not three but one: the iPhone.
The iPhone is a ubiquitous name worldwide. Its signature design and efficiently powerful operating system, iOS, ushered the world into an era of capacitive touch handheld devices. However, many details about the iPhone remain hidden in the history pages. Today, we will dive into the depths to bring you 10 fantastic iPhone history facts. So, prepare your devices, and let’s begin.
- Key Takeaways
- Flash Facts
- The iPhone and iPad are Closely Related
- The First Background Issues
- The iPhone 3G Video Dilemma
- The iPhone 4 Was $599
- The iPhone 5 and LTE
- The Highest Selling Apple Phone
- The First Major-Tech Removal Controversy
- The Beauty of A11 Bionic Processor
- Why Apple Skipped Number 9
- The First iPhone To Cross the 1000 Dollar Mark
- Conclusion
Key Takeaways
- Apple’s smartphone has a rich history with so many secrets worth exploring.
- These facts show how the technologies we use today were invented.
Flash Facts
| Company | Apple Inc. |
| Website | apple.com |
| Date of Release for First iPhone | June 29, 2009. |
| Highest Selling | iPhone 6 and 6 Plus (222.4 million units) |
| Total Number of Units Sold | Over 2.3 billion (As of January 2024) |
| Number of Generations | 23 |
The iPhone and iPad are Closely Related
The first iPhone launched in 2007 and changed the entire tech-sphere. It birthed new technologies and refined already existing ones. Three years after Steve Jobs’s historic announcement, Apple introduced a new device, the iPad, which rose to dominate its product category.
People believe the iPhone inspired the iPad’s creation. However, that’s untrue, as the iPad inspired the smartphone’s creation.
Before Apple entered the phone market, it had started designing a tablet that worked like a laptop but didn’t have a keyboard or hinge. The executives lamented their phones’ terrible designs as the company made the new tablet. Then, they had a radical idea involving shrinking the tablet into a mobile phone that could enter pockets; this led to the iPhone concept.
The First Background Issues
Though Apple’s golden child, the iPhone was far from perfect. The product’s first iteration had many problems and lacked vital features like the app store and copy and paste. One weird thing that plagued the device was the limited background functionality. The first iPhone had a black background that couldn’t change.
The iPhone 3G Video Dilemma
Speaking of lack of features, the second generation of Apple’s mobile device, the iPhone 3G, couldn’t record video. That’s right, the device came with a camera that took only photos. That changed as the 3Gs, in 2009, introduced the video recording feature.
The iPhone 4 Was $599
When Apple launched its first smartphone in the United States, it made an unusual business move and locked its phone with a cell carrier; this meant to get the device, people could only go through carriers. In 2007, this move almost wrecked the company as the carrier, AT&T, couldn’t handle the massive influx of new devices on their network and had to throttle network speeds.
In 2010, Apple launched the iPhone 4 and decided to sell an unlocked version. However, to everyone’s surprise, the phone cost about 600 dollars. Even though they were super expensive, Apple sold 1.7 million units.
The iPhone 5 and LTE
We use LTE daily and think it’s relatively new, but that’s untrue. LTE technology came in 2008 and launched publicly in 2009, 15 years ago.
When Apple launched the iPhone, it had an inferior 2g connectivity because of AT&T’s lack of bandwidth. However, on September 21, 2012, it launched the iPhone 5 with LTE connectivity.
The Highest Selling Apple Phone
In 2014, Apple struck gold like no other company. The launch of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus was widely successful. The hype garnered by the new phone’s technologies, which included a larger Retina HD display, A8 chip, and iOS 8, sent sales to the stratosphere; this led both devices to become the highest-selling smartphones in history, with a staggering 222.4 million units purchased.
The First Major-Tech Removal Controversy
Apple is no stranger to controversies. It has had many lawsuits from governments, companies, and individuals. However, in 2016, it made a decision that angered users so much that it got eternally sealed in complaint history.
With the 7 and 7 Plus’s launch, Apple removed the headphone jack, a port used for connected wired AirPods; this immensely angered everyone, and the company received lots of backlash for its blatant anti-consumer practices. However, it didn’t backtrack on their decision, leading to the port’s demise.
The tech company’s bold action influenced every smartphone company, and they also followed suit by removing the headphone jack. Since then, many people haven’t recovered and have continually criticized Apple for its decision. Unknown to them, a much weirder decision was coming in the future.
The Beauty of A11 Bionic Processor
When Apple launched the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus in 2017, people were oblivious to the technical wonder of the A11 Bionic chip, the microprocessor powering the devices.
The A11 was so powerful it completely obliterated every smartphone SoC in existence. It had 6 cores, with 2 being 2.39 GHz performance and 4 being efficiency cores. It introduced an image processor for computational photography processes like wide color capture, lighting estimation, and advanced pixel processing.
The chip worked on TSMC’s 10-nanometer FinFET process and had 4.3 billion transistors. It also featured a neural network that could perform 600 billion operations per second.
Why Apple Skipped Number 9
For many years, there were many conspiracies about why Apple skipped its numbering from 8 to X. Many people believed it was a secret device they discontinued. However, the decision to skip was simple. Apple’s success relied on impressive marketing, and naming their rebranded device iPhone 9 wouldn’t have done justice to their new face ID phone; this made them use the Roman numeral X to signify 10.
The First iPhone To Cross the 1000 Dollar Mark
When Apple introduced the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus in 2017, it hid details of a new device until the last moment. Upon revealing the new iPhone X, face ID excited everyone. However, when it came to the pricing, the figure $999 filled the screen; this shocked people, as Apple hadn’t crossed the thousand-dollar threshold.
Conclusion
We hope you enjoyed our article on cool iPhone facts. Don’t forget to leave us a comment and share. Also, you can check our Sneaky Apple Secrets and search our Facts Database.
