13 years ago today, then Apple CEO Steve Jobs took the stage at Macworld in San Francisco and surprised the world with the very first iPhone.
Jobs introduced the iPhone as if it were three separate products: an iPod with touch controls, a revolutionary mobile phone, and a breakthrough internet communications device. Today, the iPhone is still all of those things, but also so much more.
Apple has sold well over a billion iPhones since 2007, and as of last January, the company's active installed base had hit 1.4 billion devices. Though iPhone sales were down last year, the iPhone continues to be Apple's single most successful product.
Apple has steadily improved the iPhone over the years, refining the design over and over again, updating the camera, and adding new biometric features, and all of these changes have made the iPhone even more indispensable in our daily lives. Improvements over the years:
- 2008: App Store and 3G network support
- 2009: Personal Hotspot and video recording capabilities
- 2010: New form factor and Retina display
- 2011: Siri and iCloud
- 2012: 4-inch display, Lightning connector, and LTE
- 2013: Touch ID fingerprint sensor
- 2014: 4.7-inch and 5.5-inch displays
- 2015: 3D Touch, Live Photos, and 4K video recording
- 2016: Waterproofing, dual-lens camera for iPhone 7 Plus, no headphone jack
- 2017: No Home button, 5.8-inch OLED full screen display, wireless charging, fast charging, Face ID
- 2018: 5.8 and 6.5-inch OLED screen sizes, three iPhone lineup
- 2019: Night mode, triple-lens cameras
Rumors suggest the iPhone is going to see a major overhaul in 2020, with Apple set to debut 5G connectivity, a revamped iPhone 4-style frame design, 5.4, 6.1, and 6.7-inch iPhone sizes, and a time-of-flight laser-based camera system for better depth calculations and AR capabilities.
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