--- title: "The iPhone Launch" year: 2007 country: "United States" canonical: "https://recap.at/2007/iphone-launch" slug: "iphone-launch" recapType: "global_event" startDate: "2007-01-09" endDate: "2007-06-29" --- # The iPhone Launch > Steve Jobs unveils a phone, an iPod, and an internet communicator — then admits they're the same device On January 9, 2007, Steve Jobs unveiled the first iPhone at Macworld — a touchscreen that collapsed phone, iPod, and internet browser into one slab. It shipped that June at $499. Within a decade, every major Apple competitor had reorganized itself around the form factor it set. ## Summary The keynote was a piece of theater. Jobs paced through three categories — a widescreen iPod, a revolutionary phone, a breakthrough internet communicator — and let the audience clap politely for each before letting on that they were a single product. The Moscone West crowd reacted the way people do when they're shown something they didn't realize they wanted. The device itself wouldn't ship for nearly six months. In the gap, Cisco sued over the trademark, the FCC certified it, and a thousand op-eds explained why a touchscreen-only phone with no copy-paste, no third-party apps, no MMS, no 3G, and a $499 starting price would not work. Some of those critiques were correct. None of them were decisive. It went on sale June 29 to lines around the block. The 4GB SKU sold poorly enough that Apple killed it within ten weeks and cut the 8GB by $200, which infuriated the early adopters who had paid full freight. Jobs apologized in an open letter and handed out $100 store credits. The PR bruise lasted about a news cycle. What the launch reset wasn't really phones. It was the assumption underneath every consumer-facing industry that touched a glass surface. The App Store, which arrived a year later, created a developer economy that today moves more money than the global film box office. Mobile-first design became table stakes. Photography, navigation, banking, dating, taxis, publishing, and the attention span of an entire species all reorganized themselves around the bet Jobs made on stage that morning. Nokia held 49% of the smartphone market when Jobs walked out. By 2013, it was selling its phone business to Microsoft for parts. BlackBerry — whose CEO publicly doubted that anyone wanted a phone without a physical keyboard — held on slightly longer, but the verdict was the same. The keyboard, it turned out, was a footnote. ## Key facts - **Announced**: Jan 9, 2007 - **Released**: Jun 29, 2007 - **Launch price**: $499 (4GB) / $599 (8GB) - **First-weekend sales**: ~270,000 units - **Sales by end of 2007**: ~1.4 million units - **Carrier**: AT&T (US, 5-year exclusive) - **Display**: 3.5" multi-touch, 320×480 - **Storage**: 4GB or 8GB flash, no SD slot - **Cellular**: EDGE only — no 3G ## Timeline - **2007-01-09** — Macworld keynote Jobs reveals the iPhone at Moscone West. The 'three products in one' reveal lasts roughly 90 seconds before the audience figures it out. - **2007-01-10** — Cisco sues over the name Cisco, which had owned the iPhone trademark since 2000 via its Linksys subsidiary, files in federal court. Settled three weeks later on undisclosed terms. - **2007-02-21** — Apple and Cisco settle Both companies get to use the iPhone name. Cisco's product, a VoIP handset, is largely forgotten by year's end. - **2007-03-15** — FCC certification The iPhone clears FCC testing. The filing reveals a few specs Apple hadn't disclosed at Macworld. - **2007-06-11** — WWDC: 'sweet solution' for third-party apps Jobs tells developers that web apps running in Safari are the third-party platform. The reception is muted. A native SDK is announced eight months later. - **2007-06-26** — Mossberg's review drops The Wall Street Journal's Walt Mossberg calls it 'a beautiful and breakthrough handheld computer.' He flags the EDGE network and on-screen keyboard as the main weaknesses. - **2007-06-29** — On sale, 6:00 p.m. local Apple Stores and AT&T retailers open to lines that had been forming since the day before. Activation, handled in iTunes, takes longer than expected. - **2007-07-09** — First-weekend tally Apple reports ~270,000 units sold in the first 30 hours. Wall Street is split on whether that's good or disappointing. - **2007-09-05** — $200 price cut Two months in, Apple drops the 8GB to $399 and discontinues the 4GB. Early buyers are furious. Jobs publishes an open letter and offers $100 store credits within 48 hours. - **2007-10-17** — SDK announced Jobs concedes the web-app strategy isn't enough and commits to a native SDK for February 2008. The App Store is implicit in the announcement. - **2007-11-09** — European launch iPhone goes on sale in the UK (O2), Germany (T-Mobile), and France (Orange). Carrier exclusivity is challenged in French court within weeks. - **2008-07-10** — App Store opens 500 apps at launch alongside the iPhone 3G. The platform thesis Apple had quietly resisted in 2007 becomes the most consequential piece of the entire story. ## Relationships - **evolved from**: apollo-11 — Apollo's integrated-circuit demand (Fairchild, TRW, IBM) bootstrapped the microelectronics industry. Forty years later, the same supply chain — now consumer-scale — made a billion-transistor pocket computer possible. - **happened during**: september-11-attacks — The smartphone era launched in a US reorganized around security and surveillance. The infrastructure that would later carry mass surveillance debates — Snowden, FBI vs. Apple, Pegasus — was built on top of devices that began here. ## Consequences - **2008 — App Store opens**: Eighteen months after Jobs told developers to use Safari, Apple shipped a native SDK and a storefront. Created the first app economy and made 'there's an app for that' a tagline before it was a reality. - **2008 — Android 1.0 ships on the HTC Dream**: Google had been building a BlackBerry competitor. After January 2007, the team pivoted to a touchscreen-first design. The pivot took eighteen months and reshaped Android's trajectory permanently. - **2010 — Nokia begins its decline**: From 49% smartphone share in 2007 to under 5% by 2013, when Microsoft acquired the handset business. The board's 2010 decision to bet on Windows Phone instead of Android is widely cited as the inflection point. - **2013 — BlackBerry's collapse**: RIM's co-CEO had publicly dismissed the iPhone in 2007. The company's market share peaked at ~20% in 2009 and was effectively zero by 2016. The keyboard, it turned out, was a footnote. - **2010 — Uber, Instagram, and the gig/creator economies**: The combination of GPS, an always-on camera, and a payments-capable device in every pocket enabled categories that were technically impossible the year before the keynote. - **2015 — Mobile-first design becomes the default**: By the mid-2010s, mobile passed desktop as the dominant access point for the web. Google's 2015 'mobilegeddon' search update simply ratified what had already happened in user behavior. - **2018 — Attention economy and the screen-time backlash**: iOS 12 shipped Screen Time controls — Apple's tacit acknowledgment that the device was now a public-health concern as much as a product. The conversation has not gotten quieter since. ## Then vs now - **Smartphone share of global mobile shipments**: 2007: ~3% → 2024: ~85% — In 2007, a 'mobile phone' meant a feature phone for almost everyone outside the enterprise. - **Apps available for the iPhone**: 2007: 0 third-party native apps → 2024: ~1.8 million on the App Store — The App Store opened July 2008 with 500. The growth curve has been mostly up since. - **iPhone units shipped per year**: 2007: ~1.4 million (Jun–Dec 2007) → 2024: ~225 million - **Average smartphone screen size**: 2007: 3.5 inches → 2024: ~6.4 inches — Jobs called anything bigger than 3.5" 'a Hummer.' He later changed his mind. - **Mobile share of global web traffic**: 2007: <2% → 2024: ~62% - **Apple market capitalization**: 2007: ~$73 billion → 2024: ~$3.4 trillion — Roughly a 45x ride. Most of it traces back to a Tuesday morning in January. ## Media coverage - **The New York Times** (2007-01-09): [Apple Introduces Innovative Cellphone](https://web.archive.org/web/2007*/nytimes.com/2007/01/09/technology/09cnd-apple.html) > Steve P. Jobs introduced a much-anticipated cellphone on Tuesday that combines a music and video player with a wireless internet device, all controlled by a touchscreen. - **All Things Digital** (2007-06-26): [The iPhone Is Breakthrough Handheld Computer](https://web.archive.org/web/2007*/allthingsd.com/20070626/the-iphone-is-breakthrough-handheld-computer) > Mossberg's longer-form companion review for All Things D — the verdict that finally tipped the consensus from skepticism to anticipation in the three days before launch. - **The Wall Street Journal** (2007-06-26): [Testing Out the iPhone](https://web.archive.org/web/2007*/wsj.com/articles/SB118289311361649057) > Walt Mossberg and Katherine Boehret call the iPhone 'a beautiful and breakthrough handheld computer' but warn that AT&T's EDGE network and the on-screen keyboard will frustrate heavy emailers. - **Wired** (2007-01-10): [Why the iPhone Is Already Winning](https://web.archive.org/web/2007*/wired.com/gadgets/mac/news/2007/01/72524) > Forget the price. Forget the carrier lock-in. Apple's bet is that consumers will rearrange their pockets, and the rest of the industry, around a slab of glass. - **TechCrunch** (2007-01-09): [Apple iPhone: The Hype, The Reality](https://web.archive.org/web/2007*/techcrunch.com/2007/01/09/apple-iphone) > Michael Arrington live-blogs the keynote and concludes that, hype aside, the demo is the most polished mobile interface anyone has shown in public. - **Engadget** (2007-01-09): [Live from Macworld 2007: Steve Jobs Keynote](https://web.archive.org/web/20070110000000*/engadget.com/2007/01/09/live-from-macworld-2007-steve-jobs-keynote) > Photo-by-photo coverage that briefly took down the site's servers. Engadget's stock-moving aside on a Cingular partnership rumor became part of the keynote's mythology. - **BBC News** (2007-01-09): [Apple unveils mobile phone](https://web.archive.org/web/2007*/news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6246063.stm) > Apple's chief executive said the iPhone 'reinvents the phone' as he showed a device combining a widescreen iPod, a phone and a touchscreen internet client. - **The Guardian** (2007-01-10): [Apple iPhone: a smartphone for the masses?](https://web.archive.org/web/2007*/theguardian.com/technology/2007/jan/10/apple.news) > Charles Arthur weighs the iPhone against the Nokia N95 and BlackBerry Pearl and concludes that whatever Apple has invented, it isn't just a phone. - **TIME** (2007-11-01): [The Best Inventions of 2007: The iPhone](https://web.archive.org/web/2008*/time.com/time/specials/2007/article/0,28804,1677329_1678542,00.html) > Lev Grossman names the iPhone Invention of the Year, calling it 'pretty.' He concedes the price, the carrier, and the missing 3G — then explains why none of it will matter in eighteen months. - **Daring Fireball** (2007-01-09): [The iPhone, Considered](https://daringfireball.net/2007/01/the_iphone_considered) > Gruber's same-day post argued that the keynote's real news was OS X running on a phone — and that everything else, including the touchscreen, was downstream of that single decision. - **Slashdot** (2007-01-09): [Apple Announces iPhone](https://apple.slashdot.org/story/07/01/09/1748228/apple-announces-iphone) > The top-modded comment thread is split between 'this changes everything' and a long list of missing features (no replaceable battery, no 3G, no SDK). Both sides were partially right. - **Le Monde** (2007-01-10): [Apple présente l'iPhone, son téléphone tactile](https://web.archive.org/web/2007*/lemonde.fr/technologies/article/2007/01/10/apple-iphone) > Le Monde frames the iPhone as the latest move in Apple's reinvention from computer maker to consumer electronics company. - **Der Spiegel** (2007-01-10): [Apples iPhone: Der Hype, das Handy, die Hoffnung](https://web.archive.org/web/2007*/spiegel.de/netzwelt/tech/apple-iphone) > Spiegel Online compares the launch reaction to that of the original iPod and asks whether Europe's preference for Nokia and Sony Ericsson will hold once the device crosses the Atlantic. ## Voices - **USA Today interview, recorded April 2007** (industry, dismissive) — Steve Ballmer, CEO, Microsoft > $500 fully subsidized with a plan? That is the most expensive phone in the world, and it doesn't appeal to business customers because it doesn't have a keyboard. - **Wall Street Journal, Mossberg column** (media, supportive) — Walt Mossberg, Wall Street Journal > The iPhone is, on balance, a beautiful and breakthrough handheld computer. Its software, especially, sets a new bar for the smartphone industry. - **USA Today, BlackBerry-maker interview** (industry, dismissive) — Jim Balsillie, co-CEO, Research In Motion > It's kind of one more entrant into an already very busy space. As nice as the Apple iPhone is, it poses a real challenge to its users. - **Daring Fireball blog post** (expert, predictive) — John Gruber > If the iPhone really is running OS X — not 'OS X-like,' not 'a version of OS X,' but the actual thing — then this isn't a phone announcement. It's a platform announcement. - **Walt Mossberg interview with Steve Jobs, D5 conference** (expert, predictive) — Steve Jobs > We're going to ship a product that I think we're going to be proud of in five years. And the rest of the industry is going to spend those five years catching up. - **Slashdot top-rated comment, January 9 2007** (developer, skeptical) — Slashdot user, name withheld > No SDK, no Java, no Flash, sealed battery, single carrier, EDGE-only. I will buy two anyway and I hate myself for it. - **Forrester Research analyst note** (analyst, skeptical) — Forrester analyst, anonymized > The iPhone's combination of a closed ecosystem, single-carrier exclusivity, and a sub-3G radio caps its near-term enterprise upside. Consumers will love it. Procurement will not. - **USA Today interview at Apple Store, Fifth Avenue** (consumer, celebratory) — Customer in line, New York City > I've been here since Wednesday morning. I have a folding chair, a phone charger, and a copy of the Times. My wife thinks I've lost it. She's not wrong. - **Engadget reader email feature** (developer, predictive) — Independent Mac developer, Engadget reader mail > Jobs said the third-party platform is Safari. Fine. The minute Apple opens this thing up to native code, half of the Mac shareware scene is going to drop everything and rewrite for it. - **Customer letter to Apple, after Sep 5 price cut** (consumer, skeptical) — Apple customer, letter excerpt > I paid $599 ten weeks ago. Today you're selling the same phone for $399. I love the device. I do not love being made to feel like a sucker for buying it on day one. - **New York Times op-ed page** (skeptic, mocking) — NYT op-ed contributor > It is a phone. It is a very pretty phone. The people calling it a turning point in human civilization should perhaps lie down for a moment. - **Internal Apple memo, later cited in Walter Isaacson's biography** (expert, predictive) — Steve Jobs (paraphrased) > If we don't cannibalize the iPod ourselves, somebody else will. The phone is going to eat the music player. We should be the ones holding the fork. ## Impact The iPhone didn't invent the smartphone — it made the smartphone the default state of being human. Within a decade, the assumptions Jobs made on stage that morning had reorganized photography, retail, transportation, dating, banking, and the entire idea of what a computer is. Everything since has been a footnote. ## Sources - [iPhone (1st generation) — Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone_(1st_generation)) — Wikipedia - [History of iPhone — Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_iPhone) — Wikipedia - [Q2766 — iPhone (first generation)](https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2766) — Wikidata - [Q5197 — Steve Jobs](https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5197) — Wikidata - [iPhone (1st generation) — media files](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:IPhone_(1st_generation)) — Wikimedia Commons - [Apple.com homepage, Jan 9, 2007](https://web.archive.org/web/20070109210028/http://www.apple.com/) — Wayback Machine - [Apple press release: 'Apple Reinvents the Phone'](https://web.archive.org/web/20070110185514/http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2007/01/09iphone.html) — Wayback Machine - [Macworld 2007 keynote video archive](https://archive.org/details/AppleKeynotes-2007-MacworldSF) — Internet Archive - [HN discussion threads — iPhone announcement, January 2007 (Algolia)](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=custom&dateStart=1168300800&dateEnd=1170979200&page=0&prefix=true&query=iphone&sort=byPopularity&type=story) — Hacker News - [Global event coverage stream — iPhone launch week](https://api.gdeltproject.org/api/v2/doc/doc?query=%22iphone%22&mode=ArtList&startdatetime=20070109000000&enddatetime=20070629235959) — GDELT - [The One Device: The Secret History of the iPhone — Brian Merchant (2017)](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL17781089W/The_One_Device) — Open Library - [Steve Jobs / iPhone — Library of Congress collection items](https://www.loc.gov/search/?q=iphone+steve+jobs) — Library of Congress --- Canonical: https://recap.at/2007/iphone-launch