5 fascinating facts from 15 years of iPhone

Date:
Wed, 29 Jun 2022 13:20:59 +0000

Description:
The first iPhone went on sale 15 years ago today, so weve pulled some interesting details spanning the its illustrious history

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Within the first 30 minutes of Apples 2007 Macworld keynote in early January, Steve Jobs unveiled the first-ever iPhone. Just an hour later, however, the tech press and eager fans alike learned that theyd have to wait until June to actually get their hands on one. Fifteen years ago today, that wait was over.

With June 29, 2007 marking something of a milestone in the history not just
of smartphones but consumer technology as a whole, we thought itd be fun to see how that fledgling handset has evolved into the most established smartphone on the planet, by serving up a smattering of facts pulled from the history of the iPhones 15-year existence. The iPhone actually missed its
first sales target

During the iPhones 2007 launch, Jobs said the company had set its sights on selling 10 million units, equivalent to 1% of the mobile phone market at the time. Despite successfully launching on time and to generally positive reviews, (according to Statista ) the original iPhone actually only sold 1.39 million units in 2007, and a total of 6.2 million handsets before being discontinued in July 2008. Apple didnt own the iPhone brand name at launch

Apple had reportedly been in talks with networking giant Cisco for years
ahead of the iPhones unveiling in an effort to lock down the rights to the brand name. Cisco took ownership of the iPhone name when it acquired a
company called InfoGear back in 2000, which had in turn trademarked the name iPhone way back in 1996 (as reported by CNBC ).

According to TechRadars US editor-in-chief, Lance Ulanoff , at the time speculation started to form regarding potential alternatives Apple might have to settle for if a deal with Cisco couldnt be struck. Suggestions such as Apple Phone and even Steve Phone were apparently bandied about; however,
Apple and Cisco settled their dispute in late February 2007, just four months ahead of the iPhones market release. The iPhone didnt launch with the App Store, or a selfie camera

While nowadays the thought of having an iPhone without an App Store is unthinkable, thats exactly how the original device made its way to market. It wasnt until July 10, 2008, that the App Store launched, at which time it featured just 500 apps.

Today there are 1.96 million App Store apps (according to Statista ) and
thats after Apple culled all the 32-bit apps no longer compatible with iOS.

Other notable iPhone staples also took time to materialize: the iPhone 4 was the first in the line to play host to a front-facing camera; Siri didnt
arrive until 2011, as part of iOS 5 on the iPhone; and the iPhones signature Lightning Port didnt replace the 30-pin connector popularized by the iPod until 2012s iPhone 5. The iPhone 13 is up to 3.2 times more expensive than
the original iPhone but at least 53 times more powerful

The original iPhone with its 4GB of storage cost $499 on a two-year plan from AT&T, Stateside (the 8GB model cost $599), while the current iPhone 13 line ranges from $699 to $1,599 thats for the base 128GB iPhone 13 Mini and top-spec 1TB iPhone 13 Pro Max, respectively. As price increases go, thats
not that bad, especially considering just how far features and performance have come.

Speaking of performance, Moore's Law be damned; based on figures from GadgetVersus , the iPhone 13 lines A15 Bionic chipset is approximately 53 times more powerful in single-core comparisons, compared to the underclocked RISC ARM 1176JZ(F)-S v1.0 SoC inside the original iPhone and, understandably the gains afforded to multi-core architecture expand the chasm even further. Apple has shipped over 2.8 billion iPhones to date

While Apple hasnt been officially releasing worldwide iPhone sales figures since November 2018 when the total officially stood at 2.2 billion multiple sources (as collated by Business of Apps ) peg the units shipped, as of the end of 2021, at a total 2.8 billion iPhones.

According to Counterpoint Research , Apple also currently holds 62% of the premium smartphone market, and the top four spots for the most popular phones on the market (as of April 2022), worldwide. What does the future hold for
the iPhone?

While its clear that Apple has made some monumental strides in the iPhones illustrious history so far, its also no secret that a successor is already waiting in the wings.

Our iPhone 14 hub has all the latest updates on the next line of iPhones, including leaks, rumors and news.



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Link to news story: https://www.techradar.com/news/5-fascinating-facts-from-15-years-of-iphone/


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