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Happy Birthday, iPhone!

By Richard Escobedo ⋅ July 7, 2008 ⋅  Email This Post ⋅  Print This Post ⋅ Post a comment

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iPhone image, courtesy Apple

Exactly one year ago today Apple Fanboys (and girls) were able to finally get their hands on what they had been savouring for four months - the first generation Apple iPhone.

In this year, several firsts have come to this revolutionary device, as well as new products spawning from the iPhone. Below is a list outlining the most notable:

1. iPhone Price Drop - How can anyone forget the iPhone price drop that angered millions of Americans? (And the Europeans who had their iPhones a little early.) While early adopters had to wait six (or in some cases 24 HOURS) in line to get their hands on the piece of glass, plastic, and silicon that millions had been crazily salivating over, Mr. Steve Jobs himself decided to “make the iPhone more affordable” by taking a machete and slashing the price of the 8GB iPhone to $399, while eliminating the 4GB iPhone altogether.

2. The iPhone Gets Jailbroken - When the iPhone debuted many Apple Fanboys (and girls) were rather upset due to the fact that Apple in essence “lied” about the possibility that developers could develop true third party applications for the iPhone. What Apple learned from this is to not mess with the Apple Addicted sixteen year olds who have nothing better to do but sit around and try to figure out how they can hack and potentially ruin a $599 iPhone. Lo-and-behold, it was just that - a teenager who saved up his money from a part time job to buy an iPhone. He worked into the wee hours of the morning “soldering” his iPhone’s dock, until he had finally reached success!

3. Apple Sells it’s One Millionth iPhone - “It took almost two years to achieve this milestone with iPod,” Steve Jobs’ Apple’s CEO said. In just 74 days, Apple sold one million iPhones. With this announcement, Apple was confident it was well on it’s way to achieving it’s goal of selling one million iPhones before years end.

4. Apple Announces True Third Party Support - In March, Apple officially announced the iPhone SDK, which would enable third party developers to develop true third party applications which would be able to take advantage of all of the great APIs (accelerometor, touch, ambient light sensor, etc.) that Apple had developed. At the keynote, in which Scott Forstall VP of iPhone Software and Phil Schiller did most of the heavylifting, several technology companies debuted their applications which Apple had invited them develop with the newly announced iPhone SDK.

5. iPod Touch is Introduced - On September 5, 2008, Steve Jobs took center stage as he had done many-a-time before, and introduced an entirely new line of iPods. Among the newly announced iPod Classic, Shuffle, and Nano, was the iPod Touch - the “little brother” but close relative of the iPhone. The iPod Touch had the exact same multi-touch functionality that the iPhone had, as well as the Safari web browser which could take full advantage of it’s integrated wi-fi.

6. Custom Ringtones Come to iPhone - The lack of custom ringtones upset every iPhone owner, but in September of ‘07 Steve Jobs made the announcement that you could make your own custom ringtones from any song in the iTunes music store for $.99.

7. 3G and Exchange Support for iPhone - What was truly and ultimately keeping the iPhone from becoming a business class smartphone and not just a toy that a twenty-something was expected to have was it’s lack of 3G and corporate level Exchange support. In March, at the iPhone Software Roadmap event, Phil Schiller announced that the iPhone would finally get corporate support in the form of Exchange and Activesync. This was a major leap for the iPhone, as now Apple could increase it’s market share with push e-mail, contacts, and calendar.

While there are several firsts yet to come such as video capture and FLASH, the iPhone remains one of the most revolutionary devices of the new millenium. If you would like to contribute to this list, or have a suggestion, please comment or e-mail me at richard@macfocusmagazine.com.

Tags: ActiveSync, Adobe Flash, Apple, Exchange, hacks, iPhone, iPhone SDK, iTunes, Jailbroken, Microsoft, Rants, Ringtones, SDK, steve jobs