The Apple iPhone has revolutionised
the way different modern technologies can be used together.
Since it's release in June 2007, it has attracted many
supporters and detractors. Whatever your own opinion
may be, it can safely be said that the Apple iPhone
has made a real splash in the technology pool. By combining
today's most popular innovations, namely the mobile
(or cell) phone, the internet and the iPod, the Apple
iPhone has added it's own unique twist to the way all
3 technologies can be used.
In the Beginning
The visible or at least documented history of the Apple
iPhone starts with the instruction of Steve Jobbs, CEO
of Apple for engineers to start researching touch screens,
at that time, most probably still having the development
of Apple tablet PCs in mind. However, already in April
2003, he declared in a conference that the development
of traditional PDAs or tablet PCs was not the way ahead
for Apple.
New innovations perhaps lie in the realm of cell phones,
and thus, technologies, connected to them should be
improved upon. The appearance of the new product, Apple
iPhone wa announced in January, 2007 at the MacWorld
Expo with a release date for 2007 June. It is also declared
in a later conference that Apple iPhone will support
third parties creating Web 2.0 applications and users
will be able to access these on the internet.
Apple iPhone is unleashed on the United States
Apple iPhone eventually went on sale June 29, 2007, in
the United States, hundreds of people reportedly lining
up in front of the shops to be able to grab the new Apple
iPhone as soon as possible. The iPhone was originally
released in two variations, one, with a flash drive of
4 GB for $499 and the 8 GB version for $599, though the
sales of the 8 GB far outnumbering that of the other one,
which was eventually discontinued.
Apple iPhone flops
As a further development, the price is radically reduced
by $200 as soon as September, for which Apple was quite
widely attacked as this pricing and the sudden drop
is believed to be unfair. The popularity of the Apple
iPhone in the beginnings is by no means as great as
expected. For example, the sales for the first weekend
were initially estimated to be somewhere between 200,000
and 700,000 products. But just roughly 145,000 activations
were registered for the first weekend.
Initially, in order to access the Apple iPhone applications,
you had to be on a 2 year contract with AT&T which
certainly did not suit everyone and appeared to have
damaging implications on the future of the iPhone. To
make matters worse, AT&T's billing system was far
too overly complicated which attracted massive media
attention. This eventually lead to AT&T changing
the way their billing worked.
Next stop...Europe
By the end of 2007, the Apple iPhone had been released
in the U.K, Germany and France. This also didn't go
without it's hiccups. There were legal issues in the
way that Apple wanted to release through just the one
single company.
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