iPhone

 The iPhone is a line of smartphones developed and marketed by Apple Inc. that run iOS, the company's own mobile operating system. The first-generation iPhone was announced by then–Apple CEO and co-founder Steve Jobs on January 9, 2007, at Macworld 2007, and launched later that year. Since then, Apple has annually released new iPhone models and iOS versions; the most recent models being the iPhone 17, alongside the higher-end iPhone 17 Pro and 17 Pro Max, and the new iPhone Air (which replaced the iPhone 16 Plus). As of July 2025, more than 3 billion iPhones have been sold, with Apple being the largest vendor of mobile phones since 2023.

The original iPhone was the first mobile phone to use multi-touch technology. Throughout its history, the iPhone has gained larger, higher-resolution displays, video-recording functionality, waterproofing, and many accessibility features. Up to the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus, iPhones had a single button on the front panel, with the iPhone 5s and later integrating a Touch ID fingerprint sensor. Since the iPhone X,[note 2] iPhone models have switched to a nearly bezel-less front screen design with Face ID facial recognition in place of Touch ID for authentication, and increased use of gestures in place of the home button for navigation.

The iPhone, which operates using Apple's proprietary iOS software, is one of the two major smartphone platforms in the world, alongside Android. The first-generation iPhone was described by Steve Jobs as a "revolution" for the mobile phone industry. The iPhone has been credited with popularizing the slate smartphone form factor, and with creating a large market for smartphone apps, or "app economy"; laying the foundation for the boom of the market for mobile devices. In addition to the apps that come pre-installed on iOS, there are nearly 2 million apps available for download from Apple's mobile distribution marketplace, the App Store, as of August 2024.

History

Main article: History of the iPhone

2000s

Development of an Apple smartphone began in 2004, when the company started to gather a team of 1,000 employees led by hardware engineer Tony Fadell, software engineer Scott Forstall, and design officer Jony Ive,[1] to work on the highly confidential "Project Purple".[2][3]

Then Apple CEO Steve Jobs steered the original focus away from a tablet (which was later revisited in the form of the iPad) towards a phone.[4] Apple created the device during a secretive collaboration with Cingular Wireless (later renamed AT&T Mobility) at an estimated development cost of US$150 million over thirty months.[5] According to Jobs in 1998, the "i" word in "iMac" (and thereafter "iPod", "iPhone" and "iPad") stands for internet, individual, instruct, inform, and inspire.[6][7]

Apple rejected the "design by committee" approach that had yielded the Motorola ROKR E1, a largely unsuccessful "iTunes phone" made in collaboration with Motorola. Among other deficiencies, the ROKR E1's firmware limited storage to only 100 iTunes songs to avoid competing with Apple's iPod nano.[8][9] Cingular gave Apple the liberty to develop the iPhone's hardware and software in-house, a rare practice at the time,[10][11] and paid Apple a fraction of its monthly service revenue (until the iPhone 3G),[12] in exchange for four years of exclusive U.S. sales, until 2011.[13]

Jobs unveiled the first-generation iPhone to the public on January 9, 2007, at the Macworld 2007 convention at the Moscone Center in San Francisco.[14] The iPhone incorporated a 3.5-inch multi-touch display with few hardware buttons, and ran the iPhone OS operating system with a touch-friendly interface, then marketed as a version of Mac OS X.[15] It was the first mobile phone to use multi-touch technology.[16] The device launched on June 29, 2007, at a starting price of US$499 in the United States, and required a two-year contract with AT&T.[17] The price was reduced by a third after two months. The resulting complaints forced Jobs to issue an apology and offer a partial rebate to early purchasers of the Phone.[18]