History of Apple Inc.
The first version of the iPhone became publicly available on June 29, 2007 in selected countries/markets. It was another 12 months before the iPhone 3G became available on July 11, 2008. Apple announced the iPhone 3GS on June 8, 2009, along with plans to release it later in June, July, and August, starting with the U.S., Canada and major European countries on June 19. This 12-month iteration cycle has continued with the iPhone 4 model arriving in similar fashion in 2010, a Verizon model was released in February 2011, and a Sprint model in October 2011, shortly after Jobs' death.
IPhone (1st generation)
Only four writers were given review models of the original iPhone: David Pogue of "The New York Times", Walt Mossberg of "The Wall Street Journal", Steven Levy of "Newsweek", and Ed Baig of "USA Today". "The New York Times" and "The Wall Street Journal" published positive, but cautious, reviews of the iPhone, their primary criticisms being the relatively slow speed of the AT&T's 2.5G EDGE network and the phone's inability to connect using 3G services. "The Wall Street Journal"s technology columnist, Walt Mossberg, concluded that "despite some flaws and feature omissions, the iPhone is, on balance, a beautiful and breakthrough handheld computer." "Time" magazine named it the Invention of the Year in 2007.