Development of what was to become the iPhone began in 2004, when Apple started to gather a team of 1000 employees to work on the highly confidential "Project Purple", including Jonathan Ive, the designer behind the iPhone. Apple CEO Steve Jobs steered the original focus away from a tablet, like the iPad, and towards a phone. Apple created the device during a secretive collaboration with AT&T Mobility—Cingular Wireless at the time—at an estimated development cost of US$150 million over thirty months.
Apple rejected the "design by committee" approach that had yielded the Motorola ROKR E1, a largely unsuccessful collaboration with Motorola. Instead, Cingular gave Apple the liberty to develop the iPhone's hardware and software in-house and even paid Apple a fraction of its monthly service revenue (until the iPhone 3G), in exchange for four years of exclusive US sales, until 2011.
Jobs unveiled the iPhone to the public on January 9, 2007, at the Macworld 2007 convention at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. The two initial models, a 4 GB model priced at US$499 and an 8 GB model at US$599, went on sale in the United States on June 29, 2007, at 6:00 pm local time, while hundreds of customers lined up outside the stores nationwide. The passionate reaction to the launch of the iPhone resulted in sections of the media dubbing it the 'Jesus phone'. Following this successful release in the US, the first generation iPhone was made available in the UK, France, and Germany in November 2007, and Ireland and Austria in the spring of 2008.
Worldwide iPhone availability:
iPhone available since its original release
iPhone available since the release of iPhone 3G
Coming soon
WATCH THIS
The iPhone 4 has an aluminosilicate glass front and back with a stainless steel edge that serves as the antennas. It was at first available in black; the white version was announced, but not released until April 2011, 10 months later.
The iPhone has gained positive reviews from such critics as David Pogue and Walt Mossberg. The iPhone attracts users of all ages,and besides consumer use, the iPhone has also been adopted for business purposes.
Users of the iPhone 4 reported dropped/disconnected telephone calls when holding their phones in a certain way. This became known as antennagate.
On January 11, 2011, Verizon announced during a media event that it had reached an agreement with Apple and would begin selling a CDMA iPhone 4. Verizon said it would be available for pre-order on February 3, with a release set for February 10. In February 2011, the Verizon iPhone accounted for 4.5% of all iPhone ad impressions[vague] in the US on Millennial Media's mobile ad network.
From 2007 to 2011, Apple spent $647 million on advertising for the iPhone in the US.
On Tuesday, September 27, Apple sent invitations for a press event to be held October 4, 2011, at 10:00 am at the Cupertino Headquarters to announce details of the next generation iPhone, which turned out to be iPhone 4S. Over 1 million 4S models were sold in the first 24 hours after its release in October 2011. Due to large volumes of the iPhone being manufactured and its high selling price, Apple became the largest mobile handset vendor in the world by revenue, in 2011, surpassing long-time leader Nokia. American carrier C Spire Wireless announced that it would be carrying the iPhone 4S on October 19, 2011.
In January 2012, Apple reported its best quarterly earnings ever, with 53% of its revenue coming from the sale of 37 million iPhones, at an average selling price of nearly $660. The average selling price has remained fairly constant for most of the phone's lifespan, hovering between $622 and $660. The production price of the iPhone 4S was estimated by IHS iSuppli, in October 2011, to be $188, $207 and $245, for the 16 GB, 32 GB and 64 GB models, respectively. Labor costs are estimated at between $12.50 and $30 per unit, with workers on the iPhone assembly line making $1.78 an hour.
In February 2012, ComScore reported that 12.4% of US mobile subscribers used an iPhone. Approximately 6.4 million iPhones are active in the US alone.
WATCH THIS
The design of the iPhone 6 line is influenced by that of the iPad Air, with a glass front that is curved around the edges of the display, and an aluminium rear. Both models will come in gold, silver, and space grey finishes. The iPhone 6 is 6.9 millimetres (0.69 cm) thick, while the iPhone 6 Plus is 7.1 millimetres (0.71 cm) thick; both are thinner than the iPhone 5S, with the iPhone 6 being Apple's thinnest phone ever. In terms of weight, the iPhone 6 weighs in at 129 grams (4.6 oz).[13] The most significant changes to the iPhone 6 line are its displays; branded as "Retina HD", the iPhone 6 display is 4.7 inches in size with a nearly 16:9 resolution of 1334x750, while the iPhone 6 Plus includes an "ion-strengthened" 5.5-inch 1080p display. Due to the larger physical size of the iPhone 6 line, the power button was moved to the side of the phone instead of the top to improve its accessibility.[3][4]
Both models include an Apple A8 system-on-chip, and an M8 motion co-processor—an update of the M7 chip from the iPhone 5S. The main difference between the M8 and the original M7 coprocessor is the inclusion of a barometer to measure altitude changes. Phil Schiller touted that the A8 chip would provide, in comparison to the 5S, a 25% increase in CPU performance, a 50% increase in graphics performance, and less heat output. Early hands-on reports suggest that the A8's SoC GPU performance might indeed break away from previous generations doubling of performance at each yearly release, scoring 21204.26 in Basemark X compared to 20253.80, 109773.36 and 5034.75 on respectively the 5S, 5 and 4S