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. Before the Apple iPhone was released in June 2007 there was a lot of commotion about what it would be like and what type of particular details the new product would have. No wonder, as the Apple iPhone seems to be an innovative and a novel product, combining the technology of iPods, a revolutionary mobile phone and a handy internet device, some assert it to be three separate products all in one.

The iPhone Beginning

The vision for the Apple iPhone was eventually thought of after Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple, had a conference meeting with some of the engineers to start researching ways to develop the touch screen which was most likely intended for Apple’s tablet PC. In April of 2003 he announced that traditional PDAs and tablet PCs were not the direction Apple was going to move forward with.

New innovations perhaps lie in the realm of cell phones, and technologies that are connected to them and should be improved upon. In January 2007 during the MacWorld Expo, Apple announced it’s soon to be released new iPhone product would be available by June 2007. It was also declared in a later conference that the Apple iPhone will support third parties creating Web 2.0 applications, of which users would be able to access on the internet.

Release and Further Developments

It was in June 2007 that the Apple iPhone was made available to the public, people literally would line up outside of stores before they opened, in hopes of being one of the first to purchase one. When it was first released there were two types to choose from: one with a flash drive of 4GB for $499 and the other with 8GB for $599 however, the sales for the 8GB exceeded the other version so much that they suspended all manufacturing of the 4GB.

In September Apple made a reduction in the sale price of the 8GB, for $200 less then the original asking price, and that decision upset many early buyers because they felt it was unfair to them. The popularity of the Apple iPhone in the beginning was by no means as great as expected.

Apple anticipated the first weekend sales to come in around 200,000 to 700,000 devices sold to the public. But just roughly around 145,000 activations were registered for the first weekend.

One downfall was that the applications offered on the Apple iPhone, could only be activated buy getting a two year subscription with AT&T, which was a restriction many people did not appreciate. There was also wide media coverage of a 300-page bill, after which AT&T made a change in its billing practices.

The Apple iPhone was released internationally in France, the United Kingdom, Europe and Germany, towards the end of 2007. However, in Europe, Apple seemed to face legal difficulties because the iPhone was only offered through one selected company.