What happened when the products were released?

Have you ever wondered about the iPhone’s history? Well, you’re not the only one.

Over the past years, Apple products have been very popular. Not only phones, but they have also come out with earbuds, computers, music players and tablets. They have been extremely successful.

Something that a lot of people don’t know is that Apple started to become well known about 12 years ago, but the company actually started 43 years ago. However, their very first phone came out in June of 2007, and their first iPad came out in April 2010. Ever since then Apple has been coming out with all sorts of phones. They now come out with a new iPhone every year.

 Where did the idea for these phones come from?

The iPod was released in 2001, before the phone. This was not only a consumer favorite, selling nearly 400 million units, but also one of Apple’s major revenue streams. But even as the iPod was selling like crazy, Apple saw people carrying around the iPod and a mobile device. Apple realized that soon these mobile devices would have the ability to play music, so the iPod wouldn’t be selling like this for long.

Apple decided that if they were going to continue to make money and stay in business, they were going to have to come up with something that would sell more than the iPod, and still have them making money. So, that gave them an idea. Their plan was to come up with the next generation of mobile phones before their competitors did.

This idea didn’t work very well at first. Apple partnered up with Motorola for the release of the Rokr E1. This was an iTunes compatible mobile phone that allowed consumers to store songs and play them through like an iPod. But unfortunately, the significant limitations meant that it was never going to redefine the market.

It was only able to hold 100 songs, it’s slow upload rate was extremely frustrating to use, and its clunky interface was too difficult to navigate. These limitations made it clear to Apple that they needed to come up with their own solution.

How the Idea of the Phone Started to Spark

At a 2010 conference, Steve Jobs, the CEO at the time, told everyone that he had this idea, that all started with the tablet. His idea was that they could have a screen that everyone could type on, so he tried to make that idea happen. He got to work, and suddenly realized that he could invent the phone out of this. So they put the tablet idea aside and started to work on the iPhone. From there, Project Purple was born.

 Project Purple

Apple put all other projects aside and was persistent in working to overcome all the obstacles to create the iPhone. However, one of the hardest things to overcome was not at all related to manufacturing or technology, but it was trying to build a team!

To avoid their competitors finding out about the idea, Steve Jobs took security very seriously. He did not allow anyone outside of the company to work on Project Purple. In fact, he was so concerned about it that even those who were being internally recruited could not be told what they were working on before they joined.

Once the team was chosen, they were split into two separate integrated teams: hardware and software. They spent many long nights and weekends testing and brainstorming. But, conditions inside of the building seemed to be getting weird. 

Scott Forstall, Apple’s senior vice president of iOS, states 

“Very much like a dorm, people were there all the time. It smelled something like pizza, and in fact, on the front door of the Purple Dorm we put a sign up that said ‘Fight Club’ – because the first rule of that project was to not talk about it outside those doors.”

The hard work eventually yielded results when a design prototype was finalized in the spring of 2006, looking quite similar to Apple’s 2004-era iPod Mini, a metallic body with rounded edges.

Internal concerns about the rounded sides making the iPhone appear too large were eventually taken on board, and only a few months before it was released, the design was changed to the now-iconic rectangular body with rounded corners and a full-face glass display with a singular button.

 The Gorilla Glass last-minute change

In January of 2007, Steve Jobs went to the MacWorld 2007 convention and revealed the iPhone. He got big applause from all of the Apple fans. However, one thing that can be seen clearly in that video is that the iPhone Steve is holding is not the one that eventually made it into consumers´ hands.

The iPhone Steve Jobs is holding has scratches on the screen. Not because someone had used a piece of sharpened metal to gouge slivers into the glass, but because the screen on the original iPhone is made up of hardened plastic. The same plastic on iPod screens. The day after his keynote address, Steve called Jeff Williams, the now-head design at Apple and COO, and told him that the screen had to be changed to glass.

After many testing and long days of engineering, they finally got glass screens. However, Apple wanted the screen to be 1.3 mm thick, but the best that they could figure out was 4 mm thick. Although this was not what they were looking for, Corning said that they could do it.

This hundred-hour testing paid off to create what is now known as Gorilla Glass, and just 11 days before the first iPhone was released, Apple issued a press release breaking the news that the iPhone would now have a glass screen.

The iPhone was then released on June 29, 2007. Steve Jobs was correct about these phones changing the world. By September of that same year, Apple had sold itś millionth phone. Ever since then, Appleś iPhones have been extremely popular.