Apple · 2007
iPhone 2G
The day everything changed · January 9, 2007
CPU
ARM · 412 MHz
RAM
128 MB
Display
3.5" · 320×480
Storage
4 / 8 / 16 GB
Year
2007
Launch price
$499 / $599
The day everything changed · January 9, 2007
"Every once in a while, a revolutionary product comes along that changes everything." So Jobs opened Macworld on January 9, 2007. He then said Apple was introducing three revolutionary products that day: a widescreen iPod with touch controls, a revolutionary mobile phone, and a breakthrough internet communicator. The crowd applauded three times. Then he revealed it was all one device: iPhone.
The original iPhone had no App Store, no 3G, no copy and paste. Yet it completely redefined the smartphone concept. The capacitive multitouch interface, the full web browser, the unibody design — all were years ahead of Nokia, BlackBerry, and Windows Mobile.
Within five years, every major pre-iPhone phone manufacturer was in crisis or irrelevant. Nokia fell from 40% global market share to near-zero. The entire mobile industry was rebuilt from scratch around one product.
For months before the launch, iPhone prototypes were carried outside Apple's campus hidden inside fake shells designed to make them look like old Nokia or Motorola phones. Dozens of people worked on the device without ever seeing its real form. During the keynote itself, Jobs entertained the audience by live-calling a San Francisco Starbucks and ordering "4,000 lattes to go" — then hanging up before they could respond.