Apple iPhone

A Brief History of the Apple iPhone

Apple has always been known for developing trendy and cutting edge electronic consumer products that attract a large number of followers. Already before the release of Apple iPhone in June 2007, guesses have been made widely about the outlook, the specifications and about the general properties of the product. No wonder, as the Apple iPhone seems to be an innovative and novel product, combining the technology of iPods, a revolutionary mobile phone and a handy internet device, as some assert, three separate products in one.

The Beginnings

The visible or at least documented history of the Apple iPhone starts with the instruction of Steve Jobbs, CEO of Apple for engineers to start researching touch screens, at that time, most probably still having the development of Apple tablet PCs in mind. However, already in April 2003, he declared in a conference that the development of traditional PDAs or tablet PCs was not the way ahead for Apple.

New innovations perhaps lie in the realm of cell phones, and thus, technologies, connected to them should be improved upon. The appearance of the new product, Apple iPhone wa announced in January, 2007 at the MacWorld Expo with a release date for 2007 June. It is also declared in a later conference that Apple iPhone will support third parties creating Web 2.0 applications and users will be able to access these on the internet.

Release and Further Developments

Apple iPhone eventually went on sale June 29, 2007, in the United States, hundreds of people reportedly lining up in front of the shops to be able to grab the new Apple iPhone as soon as possible. The iPhone was originally released in two variations, one, with a flash drive of 4 GB for $499 and the 8 GB version for $599, though the sales of the 8 GB far outnumbering that of the other one, which was eventually discontinued.

Moreover, as a further development, the price is radically reduced by $200 as soon as September, for which Apple was quite widely attacked as this pricing and the sudden drop is believed to be unfair. The popularity of the Apple iPhone in the beginnings is by no means as great as expected.

for example, the sales for the first weekend were initially estimated to be somewhere between 200,000 and 700,000 products. But just roughly 145,000 activations were registered for the first weekend.

Moreover, the applications of Apple iPhone were originally only available to those who make a two-year subscription with AT&T, with offers that do not pay off for everyone. There was also wide media coverage of a 300-page bill, after which AT&T makes a change in its billing practices.

Apple iPhone was launched in Europe by the end of 2007, in Germany, the United Kingdom and France. However, in Europe, Apple seemed to face legal difficulties if it is to follow its scheme of offering iPhone only through one selected company.