Dr. Mac’s Rants & Raves
Episode #234
The iPhone celebrated its 10th birthday last week (that’s around 60 in dog years for those who care). So, let’s take a brief look back upon each of the 14 iPhone models we’ve seen so far and the new features it introduced.
But, before we begin, here’s an interesting statistic:
I searched my Dr. Mac’s Rants & Raves Columns folder from 2007 to present and discovered that I’ve mentioned the iPhone in 442 of the 650 files, or roughly 65% of all my columns since 2007.
Perhaps it’s time to change my moniker from Dr. Mac to something like Dr. Apple Stuff or Dr. iDevices & Macs?
Or not.
The Ten Year History of the iPhone
Moving right along, here are ship dates and significant new features for each iPhone model shipped to so far:
- 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 during the product announcement, “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).
- October 14, 2011: iPhone 4S (later changed to 4s) ships with iOS 5.0, Siri, an 8-megapixel rear camera, and 1080p video recording.
- September 21, 2012: iPhone 5 ships with iOS 6, a bigger screen, and a Lightning port replacing the 30-pin Dock Connector port.
- September 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.
- September 20, 2013: iPhone 5C ships with iOS 7, an A6 processor, polycarbonate exteriors available in six colors, and not much else.
- September 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.
- September 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.
- September 16, 2016: iPhone 7 and 7 Plus ship with iOS 10, no headphone jack, the first quad-coresystem-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 Bottom Line
The iPhone had an impressive first decade and I can’t wait to see what happens next!