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 had 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 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 Beginnings

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. During another conference later that same year, the Apple iPhone was announced that it would be able to connect with third parties creating Web 2.0 applications which users could use for internet access.

Made Public and More 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. 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, however the sales of the 8 GB far outnumbered the other one, which was eventually discontinued.

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. Apple iPhone’s initial popularity was not close to the level Apple had anticipated it would be.

Apple anticipated the first weekend sales to come in around 200,000 to 700,000 devices sold to the public. However, only approximately 145,000 iPhone activations were registered that 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. In Europe the Apple iPhone was only made available to the public through one preselected company and that seem to raise some legal concerns.