first iphone (steve jobs)
July 19, 2023 by Martin Laren
First iphone : The iPhone 2G, also known as the iPhone 1 or original iPhone, marked the beginning of Apple’s journey into the smartphone market. It was eagerly anticipated for years before being officially unveiled on January 9, 2007, and finally made available to the people in the United States on June 29, 2007.
The iPhone’s development started in 2005 and remained a well-kept secret until its grand reveal. It revolutionized the smartphone design by doing away with most physical hardware buttons and ditching the stylus, opting for a more user-friendly touch interface. The phone supported quad-band GSM cellular connectivity with GPRS and EDGE for data transfer, continually providing internet access and on-device processing for a variety of features.
When the iPhone 3G was announced on June 9, 2008, it marked the beginning of the iPhone’s ascent to becoming Apple’s flagship product. As iPhone generations evolved, Apple’s success skyrocketed, turning it into the world’s most lucrative company. The introduction of the App Store provided both established businesses and emerging developers with opportunities to flourish and make billions of dollars via the platform, while giving users innovative ways to access information and connect with others. By targeting the general public rather than the corporate market like BlackBerry and IBM, and by optimizing existing technology for user-friendliness, the iPhone completely transformed the smartphone landscape.
iphone history
First iphone
Back in 1999, Apple CEO Steve Jobs envisioned a touchscreen product that users could interact with using their fingers instead of a stylus. At the time, the stylus was heavily utilized in most touchscreen devices, including Apple’s own Newton launched in 1993. Jobs wanted a capacitive multi-touch screen technology, which was quite new and advanced back then, and believed it would pave the way for the elimination of physical keyboards and mice commonly found in tablets, human-machine interfaces, and point-of-sale systems. To explore the possibilities, Jobs assembled a team of engineers to work on the concept as a side project. This effort, started in 2005, was called Project Purple 2.
Upon reviewing the prototype and its user interface, Jobs realized its potential to evolve into a mobile phone that could compete with emerging brands in the touchscreen phone market. The “iphone.org” domain was purchased by Apple in December 1999.
The development of the iPhone resulted from Apple’s secretive collaboration with Cingular Wireless, now a part of AT&T. This partnership was unusual and estimated to cost $150 million over thirty months. Apple was given the freedom to develop the iPhone’s hardware and software in-house, avoiding the “design by committee” approach that led to the Motorola ROKR E1’s failure.
The original iPhone was unveiled by Steve Jobs at the Macworld Conference & Expo held in San Francisco, California, on January 9, 2007. Excited about the potential of the iPhone, Jobs stated that Apple would “reinvent the phone” and introduced the device as a combination of three elements: a “widescreen iPod with touch controls,” a “revolutionary mobile phone,” and a “breakthrough Internet communicator.”
A mere six weeks prior to the iPhone’s launch, the plastic screen was replaced with glass to prevent scratching. This last-minute change prompted a bidding process for a manufacturing contractor, which Foxconn won. The company had just opened a new section of its Shenzhen factory specifically for this opportunity.
Release Fist iphone
The First iPhone made its debut in the United States on June 29, 2007. The 4 GB model was priced at $499, while the 8 GB model cost $599, both requiring a 2-year contract. In anticipation of the launch, thousands of people reportedly waited in line outside Apple and AT&T retail stores, with some even camping out for days. Stock shortages were reported within an hour of the iPhone becoming available. To prevent incidents similar to the PlayStation 3 launch, which led to burglaries and a shooting, off-duty police officers were hired to guard stores overnight.
Later, in November 2007, the iPhone was released in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, the Republic of Ireland, and Austria. Notably, six out of ten Americans surveyed claimed to have been aware of the iPhone’s impending release before it hit the market.
First iphone hardware
The original iPhone’s back cover was made of aluminum, a soft metal. Its screen boasted a 320×480 resolution LCD display at 163 ppi, measuring about 3.5 inches diagonally. This screen size was significantly larger than most other phones at the time, website and the iPhone was the first mobile phone to feature multi-touch technology. The rear camera offered a resolution of 2 megapixels and included geotagging functionality.
The iPhone had four buttons and a single switch: a power and sleep button, volume up and volume down buttons, a silent/ringer switch, and a home button located at the bottom center of the phone’s face. Pressing the home button returned the user to the home screen, regardless of the app they were using at the time.
internal hardware
The original iPhone was equipped with a Samsung 32-bit ARM microprocessor, which was underclocked from its stock 620 MHz to a slower 412 MHz to improve battery life. The device also integrated various sets of sensors, such as an accelerometer, a proximity sensor, and an ambient light sensor. Like the iPod Touch, the iPhone came with a 3.5-millimeter auxiliary headphone jack. Furthermore, it housed a 3.7 V 1400 mAh Lithium-ion battery.
Software
When Steve Jobs first unveiled the iPhone in January, he claimed that the device ran on OS X and could execute “desktop-class applications.” However, by the time of the iPhone’s release, the operating system had been renamed to “iPhone OS.”
The original iPhone was compatible with three major versions of the operating system before being discontinued: iPhone OS 1, 2, and 3. The last update it received was iPhone OS 3.1.3, as iPhone OS 3.2 was specifically designed for the iPad.
software history
The original iPhone’s operating system, iPhone OS 1, came with features such as Visual Voicemail, multi-touch gestures, HTML email, Apple’s Safari web browser, threaded text messaging, an “iPod” music and video player app, a dedicated YouTube app, and a Maps app powered by Google Maps. It also incorporated basic Phone/contacts, Calendar, Photos, Stocks, Weather, Clock, Calculator, Notes, and Settings apps. However, some features like MMS, apps, and copy and paste were not supported at release, prompting hackers to jailbreak their phones to add these capabilities. Over time, Apple introduced updates that included these features.
The v1.1 update in September 2007 coincided with the iPod Touch release, adding the iTunes Store app as the first new system app.
iPhone OS 2, released on July 11, 2008, alongside the iPhone 3G, brought the Apple App Store with support for native third-party applications, Microsoft Exchange support, push email, and other enhancements.
iPhone OS 3, launched on June 17, 2009, with the iPhone 3GS, offered copy and paste functionality, home screen Spotlight search, and new features for the YouTube app. iPhone OS 3 supported the original iPhone, iPhone 3G, and 3GS, but not all of its features (such as MMS in the Messages app) were available on the original iPhone.
iPhone OS 3.1.3, from February 2010, was the last version for the original iPhone, as it did not receive the complete iPhone OS 3 feature set and iPhone OS 3.2 was intended for the iPad.
Almost all apps released after the launch of iOS 6 in late September 2012 are incompatible with the original iPhone, since the software development kit (SDK) had been updated to no longer allow “targeting” (minimum) of iOS versions older than 4.3 (including 3.x) or ARMv6 devices (first two generations).