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.
History of iPhone
In April 2003, at the "All Things Digital" executive conference, Jobs expressed his belief that tablet PCs and traditional PDAs were not good choices as high-demand markets for Apple to enter, despite receiving many requests for Apple to create another PDA. He believed that cell phones were going to become important devices for portable information access, and that mobile phones needed to have excellent synchronization software. At that time, instead of focusing on a follow-up to their Newton PDA, Jobs had Apple focus on the iPod. Jobs also had Apple develop the iTunes software, which can be used to synchronize content with iPod devices. iTunes was released in January 2001. On September 7, 2005, Apple and Motorola released the ROKR E1, the first mobile phone to use iTunes. Jobs was unhappy with the ROKR, feeling that having to compromise with a non-Apple designer (Motorola) prevented Apple from designing the phone they wanted to make. In September 2006, Apple discontinued support for the ROKR, and released a version of iTunes that included references to an as-yet unknown mobile phone that could display pictures and video.