The iPhone’s made a lot of history in 10 years
The iPhone celebrated its 10th birthday last week (that’s 70 in dog years), so let’s look back on each of the 14 iPhone models along with the new features it introduced.
But before we do that, I searched my Dr. Mac Columns folder from Jan. 9, 2007, to present and found I’d mentioned the iPhone in 442 of the 650 files, or roughly 65 percent of all Dr. Mac columns written since 2007.
For what it’s worth, I mentioned the Mac in 65 percent of all columns since 1996 and the iPad in 50 percent of columns written after its introduction in 2010.
Maybe it’s time to change my moniker from Dr. Mac to Dr. Apple Stuff or Dr. iDevices & Macs, or something? Or not.
Here are the ship dates for every iPhone model ever made, along with key new features it introduced:
• June 29, 2007: iPhone ships with iPhone OS 1.0, a web browser, an email client, a Maps app powered by Google Maps, Visual Voicemail, an onscreen keyboard and many other firsts for a mobile phone.
• July 11, 2008: iPhone 3G ships with iPhone OS 2.0, the App Store, and third-party apps.
• June 19, 2009: iPhone 3G S ships with iPhone OS 3, video recording, a higher-resolution (3 megapixel) rear camera, and speed. As Phil Schiller put it then, “the ‘S’ in ‘3G S’ is for ‘speed.’ ”
• June 24, 2010: iPhone 4 ships with iOS 4.0 (note the name change from “iPhone OS”), the first Apple-produced A4 system-on-a-chip processor, higher-resolution Retina Display, front-facing camera, and FaceTime app (for video chatting).
• Oct. 14, 2011: iPhone 4S (later changed to 4s) ships with iOS 5.0, Siri, an 8-megapixel rear camera, and 1080p video recording.
• Sept. 21, 2012: iPhone 5 ships with iOS 6, a bigger screen, and a Lightning port replacing the 30-pin Dock Connector port.
• Sept. 20, 2013: iPhone 5S ships with iOS 7, the first 64-bit processor (A7), the first motion coprocessor (M7), Touch ID, AirDrop, and Control Center.
• Sept. 20, 2013: iPhone 5C ships with iOS 7, an A6 processor, polycarbonate exteriors available in six colors and not much else.
• Sept. 19, 2014: iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus ship with iOS 8 and Apple Pay, plus 4K video recording, and optical video image stabilization on the 6 Plus.
• Sept. 25, 2015: iPhone 6s and 6s Plus shipped with iOS 9, haptic feedback and 3D Touch.
• March 31, 2016: iPhone SE ships with iOS 9 and not much else that’s new.
• Sept. 16, 2016: iPhone 7 and 7 Plus ship with iOS 10, no headphone jack, the first quad-core systemon-chip system-on-chip (A10 Fusion), upgraded 12-megapixel rear-facing cameras with optical image stabilization on both models, plus second (telephoto) lens and Portrait Mode on the iPhone 7 Plus.
The iPhone had a stellar first decade. I can’t wait to see what happens next.