Was the iPhone The First Smartphone?

It was 2007 and exactly January 9 when a young Steve Jobs openly declared from the MacWorld stage in San Francisco that the product he was about to present would revolutionize the telephone as it was known until then.

It certainly caused a real shock in the world of telephony. It immediately understands that that day would go down in history and that other manufacturers would also follow Apple's path by creating new mobile phones based on the use of a fully "touch" display.

Next, let's see how the iPhone developed from its first smartphone.

The first iPhone

iPhone 2G: a small but unique-looking device

The first iPhone was a small but unique-looking device, at least until then. It equipped with a 3.5-inch LCD with a resolution of 320×480 pixels and only 163ppi. An “entry level” nowadays, but a wonder for those years.

Equipped with an ARM processor produced by Samsung

It then equipped with an ARM processor produced by Samsung, with 128 MB of RAM memory while for the storage we had to settle for 4 or 8 GB not expandable. On a multimedia level, the iPhone had a 2MP rear camera and clearly was not yet equip with a module for 3G connections but relied on 2G ones even if it could already connect to Wi-Fi networks.

Many, especially competitors, try to minimize the potential of this first iPhone to the maximum, but Apple's new jewel takes exactly 74 days from 29 June 2007 to reach the top and already on 10 September of the same year to total one million units sold.

A milestone that only Apple expected and which was certainly surprising given the prices at which the smartphone was sold: for the model with 4 GB of memory, Apple asked for $499 while for the 8 GB version, a whopping 599 dollars.

iPhone 3G

If the first model was a success, the one to come was undoubtedly a confirmation that the path taken by Apple was the right one. The iPhone 3G lost the aluminum body, gaining a glossy polycarbonate back cover. The 3G network finally access and the new Apple device also had GPS.

To remember the introduction of the App Store thanks to which Steve Jobs allowed users to install all sorts of applications including third parties.

In the first week alone, the new virtual store records new records in terms of downloads with over 10 million applications downloaded and only 10 months after its birth the one billion downloads exceed.

iPhone 3GS: the phase of annual updates

The phase of annual updates for the hardware of the home smartphone begins for Apple. Here is that from Cupertino the new iPhone 3GSreleased which aesthetically resumes in all respects that seen with the previous version but which renews internally and not only the hardware sector of the iPhone.

It is a model with a better processor and camera and clearly this affects the speed and power that the new device now has both for surfing the internet and for using it with games.

Copy and paste in the texts also add as well as the reception of MMS which in the first two versions had not been put in place. There is also now the option to record video with the main camera.

The iPhone became a real "status symbol"

If the smartphone begins to glimpse an increasingly fierce competition towards it. With products with better technical specifications, iPhone and Apple, retain their users with small things. They make the Cupertino ecosystem unique in some way and that make the iPhone become a real "status symbol" just as it still considers today.

iPhone 4: Retina and a resolution of 960x640 pixels

2010 is the year of the iPhone 4 and of the change of that aesthetic that had introduced the first Apple smartphone to the world. The new device now has a new display called Retina and a resolution of 960x640 pixels.

A screen therefore with higher resolution. It allows Apple to obtain the primacy on a mobile device with a number of pixels four times higher than previous generations.

It is not the only novelty within the iPhone since aesthetically. A frame made of aluminum placed and a glass on the back that makes the smartphone elegant and certainly original. Moreover, it was not long or round as in the first three generations, on the contrary it is very square.

A front camera for video calls

iPhone 4 had a front camera for video calls, a rear camera with LED flash and support for multitasking. Too bad that in the first days of use, a strong defect materialized. The iPhone if badly handled weakened the network signal.

A problem that even almost asserted by Steve Jobs. If he first issued a statement in which he "taught" users to take the smartphone in a certain way. So as not to have this problem, but then with a mea culpa he admitted. Apple was not perfect as it is, he thought, and the "antenna-gate" effect was true.

iPhone 4S: the creation of an aluminum frame

You learn from mistakes and the following year like a Swiss watch. Apple presented the new iPhone 4S which did not change aesthetically compared to the previous one. Which solved the problem of reception with the creation of an aluminum frame capable of remedying the previous defects.

It was October 4, 2011, and the presentation took place without the founder of Apple and iPhone, Steve Jobs, already severely affected by pancreatic cancer. He died the very next day, and certainly the iPhone 4S was also remembered for that fatal episode.

The introduction of Siri and the virtual assistant

The innovations were clearly not aesthetic but hardware with renewals at the processor level. With the introduction of Siri, the virtual assistant that we all know today. Whom we often converse, and of iCloud, the platform that Apple created to store backups or important files.  In servers in Cupertino without having to affect the memory of the smartphone.

It was usually a success and the difficulties with the iPhone 4 were just a memory with over a million pre-orders in just 24 hours.

iPhone 5: a back-aluminum cover with two bands

Record of bookings (two million in a single day) also arrived with the new iPhone 5. A generation that once again changed the appearance of the smartphone created by Steve Jobs. Who still saw those minimal and squared lines. Which now used a back-aluminum cover with two bands, upper and lower, in glass.

The most important change, however, came with the increase in size of the smartphone, which now could count on a 4-inch display and no longer 3.5 ".

It was the first device presented without the presence of its creator. Tim Cook, who had taken the reins of the company. He tried to carry on the thought of his deceased friend. By renewing the smartphone based on the upcoming technological innovations.

LTE networks on an iPhone for the first time

It is the iPhone 5 that introduces LTE networks on an iPhone for the first time. The SIM becomes smaller and smaller. We are talking about the Nano, taking up less space in favor of components.

From 2007 to 2021, Apple keeps breaking through, and has released 33 modules of smartphones.

Now that nearly everyone feels hard to leave their phones, we can't imagine what our life would be like without them, just as we couldn't imagine what the mobile internet would be like 15 years before Apple released the iPhone.

We hope, except for iPhone, other types of smartphones will be able to declare some day in the future: We're redefining the phone.