It’s been 15 years since Apple launched its first iPhone, the device that redefined the mobile phone and helped make Apple one of the most valuable companies in the world.
Apple’s original iPhone model sold a whopping 2.2 billion units after a year of sales, and now, 15 years later, the Cupertino firm is developing one of its many successors, the iPhone 14 .
In 15 years, the iPhone has gone from being an intriguing new competitor in the consumer technology market to a device without which many simply cannot live.
“You can’t forget the first iPhone that forever changed the way we use a smartphone,” PP Foresight technology analyst Paolo Pescatore told MailOnline.
’15 years later, while behavior patterns continue to change due to technological advances, we still rely heavily on the smartphone and the popularity of the iPhone shows no signs of slowing down.
“For now it’s hard to see if the iPhone will ever be replaced, as it’s still a key gateway to Apple’s universe. Everything is connected to the iPhone.
MailOnline has taken a look at how the iconic device has changed over the years, from a constantly growing screen to better internet connectivity and smarter cameras.
MailOnline has taken a look at how Apple’s iconic iPhone has changed from the first device in 2007 (left) to the company’s latest flagship, the iPhone 13 (right)
Apple CEO Steve Jobs holds the new iPhone that was unveiled at Macworld on January 9, 2007 in San Francisco, California. The device went on sale for the first time on June 29 of that year
THE FIRST iPHONE
The flagship phone went on sale for the first time on June 29, 2007 in the US in 2007, starting at $ 499.
The development of the iPhone as a product began in 2005 and continued in complete secrecy until its public presentation in January 2007.
Key specifications include a 3.5-inch diagonal display, 16GB of storage and a 2-megapixel camera.
It was suspended just over a year later, in July 2008, when the company had sold more than 6 million units.
HELLO iPHONE, Goodbye Buttons
The first iPhone was announced by Steve Jobs in January 2007 and launched in the US on June 29 of that year. Its release in other countries, including the United Kingdom, came in November.
The co-founder described it as “an iPod, a phone and an Internet communicator,” stressing from the beginning that it was not like any other phone at the time.
Jobs was not wrong when he said the company will “reinvent the phone” with the device, which featured a 3.5-inch diagonal display, 16GB of storage and a 2-megapixel camera among its specifications.
The 3.5-inch diagonal screen was considerably larger than other smartphones at the time (which Jobs said weren’t actually “as smart”).
In 2007, rival phones such as the BlackBerry, Nokia E62, and Moto Q had a set of buttons that occupied about half of the front of the device.
For the first iPhone, Apple decided to replace the physical buttons with virtual buttons within the user interface, because they could be changed depending on the software used at any given time.
Although other touch screen products had come before, the iPhone was revolutionary because the user could interact with it with a finger instead of a stylus.
The first iPhone was announced by Steve Jobs in January 2007 and launched in the US on June 29 of that year. It had a 3.5-inch diagonal display, 16GB of storage and a 2-megapixel camera among its specifications.
The retail price of the first iPhone was announced at $ 499 in an exclusive partnership with Cingular, a company now owned by AT&T.
People line up to be the first to buy an iPhone at Apple’s flagship store on Fifth Avenue, New York, on June 29, 2007. The hype for the iPhone, which cost $ 499 or $ 599 , drove demand in excess.
CHILDREN’S PHONE MODELS
• iPhone (2007)
• iPhone 3G (2008)
• iPhone 3GS (2009)
• iPhone 4 (2010)
• iPhone 5 (2012)
• iPhone 6 (2014)
• iPhone 7 (2016)
• iPhone 8 (2017)
• iPhone X (2017)
• iPhone 11 (2019)
• iPhone 12 (2020)
• iPhone 13 (2021)
Jobs memorably condemned rival tech companies that chose to design a stylus for their tablets when they introduced the first iPhone (rival Samsung still launches stylus phones today).
‘Who wants a pencil?’ said Jobs. ‘You have to get them, save them, you lose them. Wow! No one wants a pencil. So we don’t use a pencil.
Apple products, he said, were designed to work with the “best pointing device in the world”: the human finger.
The touch screen has always been a mainstay of the iPhone; the difference is that it has become bigger and bigger to accommodate a growing love for real-time TV shows and movies.
Later, the iPhone screen would increase to 4 inches (iPhone 5 in 2012), 4.7 inches (iPhone 6 in 2014), 5.8 inches (iPhone X in 2017, and 6.7 inches (iPhone 13 Pro) Max, released last fall).
PROFESSIONAL QUALITY CAMERAS
Although the phones had cameras in 2007, the quality and potential for artificial intelligence filtering and editing that exist today was not yet there.
The original iPhone had only one camera: 2 megapixels, located on the back of the device. At the time, a camera on the back of a phone was quite common.
But he was unable to record video, which is now taken for granted. Video capability would not reach Apple phones until the iPhone 3GS in 2009.
The iPhone 6, the eighth generation of the iPhone launched in 2014, had a 4.7-inch screen (although the screen of the iPhone 6 Plus was even larger: 5.5 inches)
A front-facing camera would not be introduced to Apple phones until 2010 on the iPhone 4 (pictured), which was announced in conjunction with FaceTime at the 2010 Apple Developer World Conference.
APPLE MARKET SHARE
Apple currently has an 18 percent share of the global smartphone market and shipped 59 million units of iPhones in the first quarter of 2022, according to Counterpoint Research.
The Cupertino-based tech giant ranks second in the battle for smartphone market share; Korean rival Samsung is the first, with a 23% stake in 74.5 million units shipped in the first quarter of 2022.
The global smartphone market has shrunk by 7 percent the year before the first quarter of 2022, due to Covid, the ongoing component shortage and the war between Russia and Ukraine, Counterpoint said.
The 2-megapixel camera of the original iPhone produced photos with a resolution of 1,600 x 1,200, not much compared to current standards, but still impressive at the time.
Of course, in 2007 it was before the ‘selfie’ gained the huge international popularity it has today, so a front camera would not be introduced until 2010 on the iPhone 4, accompanied by the new platform video chat, FaceTime.
In 2016, the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus were introduced, with the Plus hosting for the first time a dual rear camera, designed to capture images to compete with those of a digital camera.
It is advancing rapidly through 2021, and by comparison, the iPhone 13 has three cameras (one front and two rear), while the iPhone 13 Pro has four (one front and three rear).
Like many modern smartphones, iPhone cameras are now designed to compete with some of the most expensive and sophisticated digital cameras consumers can buy.
One of the innovations of the iPhone 13’s camera is a “movie mode” that can keep the focus on a moving subject, allowing users to create movies that look like they should be on the big screen.
Apple’s various iPhone 13 models are on display at an Apple Store in Beijing on the day the series went on sale, September 24, 2021
FROM 2G TO 5G
Jobs introduced the first iPhone as an “innovative Internet communications device” with desktop email, web browsing, search, and maps.
But the device could only connect to WiFi and 2G, the second-generation cellular network standard dating back to the 1990s.
Although the first commercial 3G networks were introduced in mid-2001, the iPhone did not have a 3G connection capability for fast Internet access.
3G hit iPhones the following year with the iPhone 2, first launched in July 2008, which Apple connected with the slogan “twice as fast at half the price” (starting at $ 199 per to an 8GB model instead of $ 499 for a 4GB model as with the first iPhone).
“The new iPhone 3G combines all the revolutionary features of the iPhone plus the 3G network which is twice as fast, integrated GPS for extended location-based mobile services,” Apple said at the time.
The following year, in 2009, Apple launched the iPhone 3GS, with apps that could run at least twice as fast (the S meant “speed”).
In the photo, the iPhone 3GS, the third-generation iPhone launched in June 2009 and the successor to the previous year’s iPhone 3G.
Telekom CEO Rene Obermann (left) and Apple CEO Steve Jobs present the iPhone in Berlin, September 19, 2007. Deutsche Telekom obtained the exclusive marketing rights to Apple’s mobile phone in Germany
Apple first introduced 4G, the next-generation connectivity standard on its phones in 2012, starting with the iPhone 5, while 5G, the current standard, arrived in 2020 with iPhone models. 12.
Apple was far from the first smartphone maker to introduce a device with integrated fifth-generation communications technology, however, this feat goes to rival Samsung, which first brought the Galaxy S10 5G to Korean customers. of the South in April 2019.
HUG ON THE APPS
Interestingly, Steve Jobs originally opposed the idea of allowing third-party development to iOS, the firm’s proprietary software, which also debuted in June 2007 with the first iPhone.
In other words, Jobs didn’t want the iPhone to have apps that users could buy from outside developers, so every app on an iPhone would be something his company would have helped create.
So when the iPhone was first launched it had no App Store and only came with pre-installed apps like Weather, Notes, Calendar and Photos.
It’s amazing to think that iPhones came without third-party apps, which are now a dominant part of the iPhone user experience. In the photo there is the …