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.
Form factor (mobile phones)
A slate or slade (UK English) is a smartphone form with few to no physical buttons, instead relying upon a touchscreen and an onscreen keyboard. The first commercially available touchscreen phone was a brick phone, the IBM Simon Personal Communicator, released in 1994. The iPhone, which was released in 2007, is largely responsible for the influence and achievement of this design as it is currently conceived.