June 29, 2007: Apple Inc. released its first-ever smartphone, the iPhone. The product project began two years earlier but was kept a total secret until its public announcement. Thanks in part to the iPhone’s popularity, Apple became the most profitable company of all time.
iPhone (1st generation)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The iPhone[10] (retroactively referred to as the iPhone 2G,[11] iPhone 1,[12] or original iPhone[11]) is the first iPhone model and the first smartphone designed and marketed by Apple Inc. After years of rumors and speculation, it was officially announced on January 9, 2007,[13] and 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 GSM cellular connectivity with GPRS and EDGE support for data transfer, and it used continuous internet access and onboard processing to support features unrelated to voice communication. Its successor, the iPhone 3G, 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.[14] The introduction of the App Store 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.[15] The iPhone largely appealed to the general public, as opposed to the business community BlackBerry 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”.[16]