It was January 9, 2007. Steve Jobs walked onto a stage at Moscone West in San Francisco, wearing that iconic black turtleneck and blue jeans. He told the world he was introducing three revolutionary products: a wide-screen iPod with touch controls, a revolutionary mobile phone, and a breakthrough internet communications device. He repeated them like a mantra until the crowd realized he wasn't talking about three separate gadgets. He was talking about one. But if you’re asking when did iPhone 1 come out for the general public, that’s a slightly different story. While the reveal happened in the dead of winter, the actual release date didn't hit until June 29, 2007.
People waited in line for days. Seriously.
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The hype was unlike anything the tech world had seen. It’s hard to remember now, in a world where we upgrade our slabs of glass every two years without thinking, but in 2007, the "iPhone 2G" (as it’s often called now, though never officially by Apple) was a legitimate alien artifact. Most of us were still clicking away on plastic BlackBerry keyboards or flipping open Motorola Razrs. Then, suddenly, this 3.5-inch screen changed the rules of the game.
The Long Wait: From Macworld to the Apple Store
The gap between January and June felt like an eternity. Apple needed that time for FCC approval and to iron out the massive bugs that Steve Jobs famously hid during the live demo. If you watch that original keynote back, you're seeing a miracle of "smoke and mirrors." The prototype Jobs used was so unstable it had to be kept in a specific "golden path"—if he checked his email and then tried to play music in the wrong order, the whole thing would have crashed on live television.
When the release finally arrived at 6:00 PM local time on June 29, 2007, it was absolute chaos. Thousands of people camped out in front of Apple Stores and AT&T locations across the United States. It was the birth of the "line culture" we associate with tech today.
Back then, the phone was an AT&T exclusive. If you were on Verizon or Sprint, you were basically out of luck unless you were willing to break your contract and switch. It cost a staggering $499 for the 4GB model and $599 for the 8GB version. That’s on top of a two-year contract. Most critics thought Apple was crazy. They said nobody would pay $500 for a phone that didn't even have a physical keyboard.
Boy, were they wrong.
What Most People Forget About the Original iPhone
We look back at the iPhone 1 with rose-colored glasses, but let’s be real for a second: it was missing things that we consider "basic" today. There was no App Store. You read that right. When the iPhone 1 came out, you were stuck with what Apple gave you. Calculator, Weather, Notes, Mail, and Safari. That was the "breakthrough internet device." Steve Jobs initially wanted developers to just make "web apps" that ran in the browser. It took a near-mutiny from Apple’s executive team to convince him that a native SDK and an App Store were the right moves for the next year.
There was also no 3G. In a world where we complain about 5G speeds being slightly slow, the original iPhone ran on AT&T’s EDGE network—basically a "2.5G" speed that felt like dial-up. It was slow. Painfully slow. Loading a single webpage could take thirty seconds if you weren't on Wi-Fi.
And the camera? Two megapixels. No flash. No video recording. Honestly, your grandmother’s old flip phone probably took better photos at the time. There was no front-facing camera either, because selfies weren't even a thing yet. If you wanted to take a picture of yourself, you had to turn the phone around and hope for the best.
The Weird Quirks
- The Headphone Jack: It was recessed deep into the body. Most standard headphones wouldn't fit unless you bought a clunky adapter.
- No Copy-Paste: You literally couldn't copy and paste text. This feature didn't arrive for years.
- No Wallpapers: You were stuck with a black background behind your icons.
- The "Jesus Phone": That's what the media called it because the expectations were so high it was practically religious.
Why the Launch Date Still Matters
So, why do we still care about when did iPhone 1 come out? Because it marks the "Year Zero" of the modern world. Before June 2007, the internet was something you sat down at a desk to "use." After the iPhone, the internet became something that lived in your pocket. It changed how we eat (Instagramming food), how we move (Uber/Lyft), and how we interact with the world around us.
The engineering feats were actually pretty mind-blowing for 2007. Apple used a "multi-touch" screen that allowed for gestures like pinching to zoom. This sounds mundane now, but at the time, seeing a photo shrink and grow under your fingers felt like actual sorcery. It used an ARM-based processor that was surprisingly powerful for its size, essentially a "computer in your pocket" long before that became a marketing cliche.
Historical Timeline of the First iPhone
- Project "Purple": Apple started working on a phone project as early as 2004. It started as a tablet project (which eventually became the iPad), but Jobs realized the touch technology worked better for a phone.
- The Announcement: January 9, 2007, at Macworld Expo.
- The FCC Approval: May 2007.
- The Launch: June 29, 2007, at 6:00 PM.
- The Price Cut: Only two months later, in September 2007, Apple killed the 4GB model and dropped the price of the 8GB model by $200. Early adopters were furious, leading Jobs to offer a $100 store credit to appease the masses.
- Discontinuation: July 15, 2008, following the release of the iPhone 3G.
By the time Apple stopped selling the original iPhone, they had moved over 6 million units. It wasn't the best-selling iPhone ever (the iPhone 6 holds that crown), but it was the most important. It proved that people wanted a full desktop-class browser in their pocket and that the "blackberry thumb" was a thing of the past.
The Legacy of the iPhone 1 Today
If you have an original iPhone sitting in a drawer somewhere, don't throw it away. A factory-sealed original iPhone sold at auction recently for over $190,000. Even used ones in decent condition can fetch a few hundred dollars from collectors. It's become the "Type 1" stamp of the tech world.
Looking back, the iPhone 1 was flawed, expensive, and slow. But it was also the most ambitious consumer product ever launched. It forced every other company—Google, Samsung, Microsoft—to go back to the drawing board. Android, as it exists today, was basically scrapped and redesigned the moment Google saw what Apple had built.
The story of when did iPhone 1 come out isn't just about a date on a calendar. It's about the moment the world decided to stop looking up and start looking down at their screens.
What You Should Do Now
If you're a tech enthusiast or a collector, there are a few practical ways to engage with this history. First, if you own an original iPhone, check the model number. The early 4GB versions are the rarest and most valuable. Second, if you're interested in the history of design, go back and watch the 2007 keynote. It’s a masterclass in presentation that still influences how tech companies launch products today. Finally, take a second to appreciate your current smartphone. It is millions of times more powerful than the device that started it all on that summer evening in 2007.
To really understand the impact, look at your screen time settings. That number—for better or worse—is the direct legacy of June 29, 2007. We are all living in the world that the iPhone 1 built.