It was a Tuesday. Specifically, January 9, 2007. Steve Jobs walked onto the stage at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, wearing that same black turtleneck and those Dad jeans we all remember, and changed how we interact with the physical world. Most people think they know the story of when was the iPhone first introduced, but the actual event was a high-wire act of technical glitches and desperate prayers from the engineering team.
The iPhone didn't just "drop." It was a pivot point.
Before that morning, if you wanted to check your email on the go, you were probably mashng your thumbs into a tiny plastic keyboard on a BlackBerry or a Palm Treo. Those devices were fine for 2006. They were functional. But they were ugly, clunky, and they required you to navigate menus that felt like they were designed by accountants. Then came the "Jesus Phone." That’s what the tech blogs started calling it almost immediately. Jobs pitched it as three separate devices: a widescreen iPod with touch controls, a revolutionary mobile phone, and a breakthrough internet communications device.
He repeated those three things over and over until the crowd realized he wasn't talking about three different gadgets. He was talking about one.
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The Macworld 2007 Gamble
When you look back at when was the iPhone first introduced, it's easy to assume the demo was seamless. It wasn't. Behind the scenes, the prototype Jobs was holding was barely functional. The "Purple" project—the internal codename for the iPhone—was still riddled with bugs. Software crashed if you played music and then tried to send an email. The WiFi was spotty. The screen frequently froze.
The engineers had developed a "golden path." This was a specific sequence of actions Jobs had to follow in a precise order so the phone wouldn't crash. If he sent the email before playing the music? Boom. Black screen. If he browsed the web for too long? The memory would leak and the device would restart.
It was a miracle it worked at all.
Actually, the "breakthrough internet communications device" part was the most dangerous bit of the demo. Mobile Safari was revolutionary because it showed the real internet, not the stripped-down WAP versions we were used to. Seeing a full web page on a handheld device in 2007 felt like looking at alien technology. It's hard to explain that feeling to someone who grew up with a smartphone, but it was genuinely shocking.
What the Critics Said (And Why They Were Wrong)
It wasn't a universal win. Not even close.
Steve Ballmer, the CEO of Microsoft at the time, famously laughed at it. He pointed out it was the most expensive phone in the world and that it didn't appeal to business customers because it didn't have a physical keyboard. "It doesn't appeal to business customers because it doesn't have a keyboard," he told reporters. He thought thumbing a glass screen was a gimmick.
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Even the tech press was skeptical. Some complained about the lack of 3G—it launched on AT&T's painfully slow EDGE network. Others hated that you couldn't swap the battery or add a memory card. These were valid criticisms for 2007. But they missed the bigger picture. Apple wasn't building a better phone; they were building a pocket computer that happened to make calls.
Breaking Down the Launch Timeline
The gap between when was the iPhone first introduced and when you could actually buy it was agonizing. Six months. That’s an eternity in the tech world.
- January 9, 2007: The announcement at Macworld.
- June 29, 2007: The actual "iPhone Day" where it went on sale at 6:00 PM local time.
- Late 2007: Launch in the UK, Germany, and France.
The lines at Apple stores were miles long. People camped out for days. This was the birth of the "Apple Line" culture. It’s important to remember that this first model didn't even have an App Store. Think about that for a second. You were stuck with the apps Apple gave you: Weather, Stocks, Mail, Safari, and a few others. No Instagram. No Uber. No Candy Crush.
You couldn't even change the wallpaper! It was just black.
The Multi-Touch Revolution
The real magic was the screen. Capacitive touch was the secret sauce. Before the iPhone, most touchscreens were "resistive." You had to actually press down on them, usually with a stylus. Apple’s use of multi-touch allowed for "pinch to zoom."
When Jobs did that on stage—pinching a photo to make it larger—the audience literally gasped. It felt organic. It felt like you were actually touching the data. It’s a UI language we all speak fluently now, but Apple had to teach it to the world. They spent years perfecting the physics of the "rubber band" scroll, where the list bounces when you hit the bottom. It's those tiny details that made the iPhone feel "human" compared to the cold, industrial feel of a Windows Mobile device.
Why the Timing Mattered
If Apple had tried this in 2003, the processors wouldn't have been fast enough. If they waited until 2010, Google might have beaten them to the punch with Android (which was originally being developed as a BlackBerry clone before the iPhone changed their entire trajectory).
2007 was the "Goldilocks" year.
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The iPod had already made Apple a household name again. People trusted them with music. Moving that trust to a phone was a natural, albeit risky, leap. Also, the transition from "dumb" phones to smartphones was just starting to hit the mainstream. Most people were still rocking the Motorola Razr—a beautiful piece of hardware, but one that was essentially a dead end for software.
Honestly, the original iPhone was kind of a terrible phone. The call quality was mediocre, and it dropped calls constantly because AT&T's network couldn't handle the data load. But nobody cared. We were too busy looking at the Google Maps app and realizing we'd never have to print out MapQuest directions ever again.
The Legacy of the First Introduction
When we look at the date when was the iPhone first introduced, we’re looking at the start of the "Screen Age." It changed journalism, photography, dating, and how we argue with strangers. It killed the point-and-shoot camera market. It killed the GPS unit market. It basically swallowed every other piece of consumer electronics and turned them into icons on a grid.
The price was also a shocker: $499 for the 4GB model and $599 for the 8GB model, with a two-year contract. In today's money, that's significantly more. Within two months, Apple dropped the price by $200 because they realized they'd priced it too high for the average consumer, which led to a massive outcry from early adopters. Steve Jobs eventually had to offer $100 store credit to appease the "fanboys."
Practical Takeaways from the iPhone's History
Understanding the history of the iPhone isn't just for tech geeks. It offers real lessons in how innovation works in the real world.
- First doesn't mean perfect: The 2007 iPhone lacked 3G, GPS, and an App Store. It succeeded because the core experience—the UI and the web browsing—was lightyears ahead of everyone else.
- The "Golden Path" lesson: If you're launching a product, focus on the primary user journey. Don't worry about the edge cases until the core "magic" works perfectly.
- Hardware is a vessel for software: The iPhone proved that people don't buy gadgets for the plastic and glass; they buy them for what the software allows them to do.
If you're looking to explore the evolution of mobile tech, your next step should be to look into the iPhone 3G launch in 2008. That’s when the App Store arrived, and that’s when the "smartphone" as we know it today truly reached its final form. You might also want to research the "Project Purple" design phases to see the crazy prototypes Apple rejected, including one that had a click-wheel just like an iPod.
The story of when was the iPhone first introduced is really a story about the death of the button and the birth of the glass slab. We've been living in that world ever since.
Actionable Next Steps:
To see the impact of this history yourself, go into your current phone's settings and look at your "Screen Time" stats. It’s a direct through-line from that January morning in 2007. If you want to dive deeper into the technical side, search for "The iPhone Purple Project" to see how close the device came to never existing at all.