Steve Jobs debuts the iPhone
On this day in 2007 Apple Inc.CEO Steve Jobs unveils the iPhonea touchscreen mobile phone with an iPod camera and Web-browsing capabilities among other featuresat the Macworld convention in San Francisco.Jobs dressed in his customary jeans and black mock turtleneck called the iPhone a revolutionary and magical product that is literally five years ahead of any other mobile phone.
When it went on sale in the United States six months later on June 29 amidst huge hype thousands of customers lined up at Apple stores across the country to be among the first to purchase an iPhone.In November 2007by which point more than 1.4 million iPhones had been soldTime magazine named the sleek 4.8-ounce device originally available in a 4GB 499 model and an 8GB 599 model its invention of the year.The iPhone went on sale in parts of Europe in late 2007 and in parts of Asia in 2008.In July 2008 Apple launched its online App Store enabling people to download software applications that let them use their iPhones for games social networking travel planning and an every growing laundry list of other activities.
Apple went on to release updated models of the iPhone including the 4S which debuted in October 2011 and featured Siri a voice-activated digital assistant.The iPhone helped turned Apple which Jobs (1955-2011) co-founded with his friend Stephen Wozniak in California in 1976 into one of the planets most valuable corporations.In 2012 five years after the iPhones debut more than 200 million had been sold.The iPhone joined a list of innovative Apple products including the Macintosh (launched in 1984 it was one of the first personal computers to feature a graphical user interface which allowed people to navigate by pointing and clicking a mouse rather than typing commands) and the iPod portable music player (launched in 2001) that became part of everyday modern life.
