So, you’re wondering when the first Apple phone was made? It feels like we’ve had these glass rectangles in our pockets forever, but honestly, the timeline is a bit messier than a single date on a calendar. Most people point to 2007, and they aren't wrong, but the "birth" of the iPhone wasn't a single "Aha!" moment. It was a chaotic, high-stakes, multi-year gamble that almost broke Apple before it even started.
If we’re being technical about when the first Apple phone was made, the public reveal happened on January 9, 2007. Steve Jobs stood on a stage in San Francisco and did that famous "three products in one" bit. You know the one: a widescreen iPod, a revolutionary mobile phone, and a breakthrough internet communicator. But if you were looking to actually buy one? You had to wait until June 29, 2007.
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The "Project Purple" Years (2004–2006)
The real work started way before the lights went up at Macworld. Around late 2004, Steve Jobs gave the green light to a top-secret initiative called Project Purple. It was basically a "holy war" inside Apple. Engineers were pulled from different departments, sworn to secrecy, and locked in a building where they lived on pizza and stress.
They actually explored two different paths. One was basically an iPod with a phone inside—imagine trying to dial a number using a click wheel. Yeah, it was as terrible as it sounds. Tony Fadell, one of the main guys behind the iPod, later admitted it felt like using a rotary phone.
The other path, the one that won, came from a weird tablet project they’d been messing with. They realized that if they could shrink that multi-touch technology down, they wouldn't need a keyboard or a stylus. Jobs famously hated styluses. "If you see a stylus, they blew it," he’d say.
The Day the World Changed (and Nearly Crashed)
The January 2007 keynote is legendary now, but behind the scenes, it was a total disaster waiting to happen. The software was barely functional. The demo units Jobs used on stage had to be used in a very specific order—if he checked his email before playing a song, the whole thing would crash.
Engineers were literally drinking scotch in the audience, terrified that the phone would "brick" on live television. It didn't. It worked perfectly.
Why the Original iPhone Was Actually Kind of Bad
It’s easy to be nostalgic, but let’s be real for a second. The first Apple phone was missing features that even "dumb" phones had at the time:
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- It couldn't record video.
- There was no copy-and-paste. (Seriously, none.)
- It didn't have 3G. It ran on AT&T’s "EDGE" network, which was painfully slow.
- You couldn't even change the wallpaper.
- Most importantly: There was no App Store. You were stuck with what Apple gave you.
Why It Mattered Anyway
Even with those flaws, the first Apple phone made every other device look like a dinosaur. Before 2007, "smartphones" like the BlackBerry or the Palm Treo were covered in tiny plastic buttons. Apple proved that the software is the phone.
By the time the phone actually hit stores in June 2007, the hype was insane. People camped out for days. Apple sold about 270,000 units in the first 30 hours. Within three months, they’d hit over a million. It was the first time a phone felt like a "computer in your pocket" rather than just a pager with a screen.
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Spotting a Real 2007 iPhone Today
If you find one in a drawer, you’ll notice a few things right away. It’s tiny. The screen is only 3.5 inches—about the size of a modern iPhone’s "Dynamic Island" area. The back is mostly silver aluminum with a black plastic strip at the bottom for the antennas.
Today, those original 2007 models (especially the ones still in the box) are worth a fortune. We’re talking $50,000 to $100,000 at auctions. Not bad for a device that couldn't even send a picture message when it launched.
Actionable Next Steps
If you're looking to dive deeper into the history or even try to find a piece of this tech history, here is what you should do:
- Watch the 2007 Keynote: It's on YouTube. Even 19 years later, it’s a masterclass in presentation.
- Check Your Drawers: If you have an original iPhone (Model A1203), check the storage. The 4GB models are the rarest because they were discontinued just months after launch.
- Read "The One Device": If you want the gritty, non-sanitized version of how this thing was built, Brian Merchant’s book is the gold standard for reporting on Project Purple.