Which was the first iphone app

Who Invented the iPhone?

It all depends on what you mean by “invented”

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The great man theory has crept back into popular culture in recent years, repurposed for the world of entrepreneurs, tech start-ups and digital conglomerates. Elon Musk revolutionized the electric car. Mark Zuckerberg pioneered the social network. Steve Jobs and his team at Apple invented the iPhone.

These heroic narratives are both factually incorrect and unhelpful. In educational terms, a whole generation is growing up on inspirational YouTube videos revering individualism and some troubling leadership traits (see here for the darker side of Jobs and Apple). Yet the challenges the world faces—energy crises, food shortages, climate change, overpopulation—require collaboration and cooperation from all of us, both as global citizens and nations. These challenges are too complex, interconnected and fast-moving to be solved by any one person, idea, organization or nation. We will need to harness the fundamental principle underpinning all research—to stand on the shoulders of giants, with each new breakthrough building on the work of others before it. The hidden story of the iPhone is a testament to this.

The relentless drive and ingenuity of the many teams at Apple cannot be doubted. But there were hundreds of research breakthroughs and innovations without which the iPhone would not even be possible. Each was the result of countless researchers, universities, funders, governments and private companies layering one innovation on top of another.

To demonstrate this, here’s a closer look at just three of the research breakthroughs that underpin the iPhone.

THE TOUCH SCREEN

The iPhone wouldn’t be the iPhone without its iconic touch-screen technology.

The first touch screen was actually invented way back in the 1960s by Eric Arthur Johnson, a radar engineer working at a government research center in the U.K. While the Righteous Brothers were losing that lovin’ feeling, Johnson was publishing his findings in an Electronics Letters article p ublished by th e Institution of Engineering and Technology . His 1965 article, “Touch display—a novel input/output device for computers» continues to be cited by researchers to this day. The 1969 patent that followed has now been cited across a whole host of famous inventions—including Apple’s 1997 patent for “ a portable computer handheld cellular telephone .”

Since Johnson’s first leap forward, billions of dollars have been awarded to research on touch-screen technology—from public bodies and private investors alike, with one often leading to the other. The University of Cambridge, for example, recently spun out a limited company to secure further investment for their own research on touch-screen technology, successfully closing a $5.5m investment round backed by venture capitalists from the U.K. and China.

One Apple patent on touch-screen technology cites over 200 scientific peer-reviewed articles, published by a range of academic societies, commercial publishers and university presses. These authors did not work alone. Most were part of a research group. Many were awarded a grant for their research. Each had their article independently evaluated by at least one external academic in the peer-review process that sits at the core of academic research. Consider one article on touch-screen technology recently published by Elsevier’s Information Sciences journal. Six authors and two blind peer reviewers are acknowledged. Conservatively extrapolating such figures across the two hundred articles cited by Apple tallies to over a thousand researchers, each making their important contribution to this area of touch-screen technology.

Johnson may have taken the first step, and Apple harnessed its potential, but we owe touch-screen technology to the collective efforts of numerous researchers all over the world.

THE LITHIUM BATTERY

Battery Low. Blink, blink. We all know iPhones soak up a lot of power, yet they’d be nowhere without the rechargeable lithium battery.

British scientist Stanley Whittingham created the very first example of the lithium battery while working in a lab for ExxonMobil in the ‘70s, carrying forward research he’d initially conducted with colleagues at Stanford University. Previous research had already indicated that lithium could be used to store energy, but it was Whittingham and his team that figured out how to do this at room temperature—without the risk of explosion (Samsung take note).

A professor at the University of Oxford, John Goodenough, then improved on Whittingham’s original work by using metal oxides to enhance performance. This, in turn, piqued Sony’s interest, which became the first company to commercialize lithium batteries in the 1990s and launched a lithium powered cell phone in Japan in 1991. All of this provided the basis for mass use, with Apple duly obliging when they first launched the iPhone to over a million users in 2007.

Lithium’s story doesn’t stop there. As one of the building blocks of a world without fossil fuels, its production is zealously guarded. So who do you think bought Sony’s battery business in 2016? Why, one of Apple’s leading suppliers no less, Murata Manufacturing. Meanwhile, John Goodenough, now 95, continues his groundbreaking research. Only a few months ago he published a landmark study in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. Among its claims? That Goodenough had created a lithium battery for electric cars that can be used 23 times more than the current average.

THE INTERNET AND THE WORLD WIDE WEB

When Apple engineer Andy Grignon first added internet functionality to an iPod in 2004, Steve Jobs was far from enthusiastic: “This is bullshit. I don’t want this. I know it works, I got it, great, thanks, but this is a shitty experience.”

The painstaking work of multiple Apple teams took a “shitty experience” and made something revolutionary—all collective human experience and knowledge right there, in your back pocket, at the touch of your fingertips. But who do we have to thank for this?

Sir Tim Berners-Lee is widely credited with the invention of the World Wide Web. His work began in the 1980s while at the European Organization for Nuclear Research. Better known by its French acronym, CERN was established by 12 European governments in 1952 and continues to be funded by its member states. Berners-Lee’s ideas began as a proposed solution for a very specific problem at CERN: how best to facilitate the sharing and updating of the vast amounts of information and data used by CERN researchers. His proposal was based on the concept of hypertext, a term first coined by the theoretical pioneer Ted Nelson in a 1965 paper published by the Association for Computing Machinery. Often compared to an electronic version of the footnoting system used by researchers the world over, hypertext underpins the web, enabling you to jump from one source of information to another. Anywhere on the Internet. In whatever form it may be.

But even Berners-Lee cannot be given solo credit. If the World Wide Web is the map, the internet is the landscape we navigate: a networking infrastructure connecting millions of computers globally, enabling each to communicate with the other, transferring vast quantities of information.

To trace the origins of the internet we have to return to 1965. While Nelson was coining hypertext and Eric inventing the touch screen, two researchers at MIT, Thomas Merrill and Lawrence Roberts, connected their computer to another 3,000 miles away in California using a simple low-speed dial-up telephone line. Shortly after that came Arpanet, not a dystopian AI system, but the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network. Arpanet was established and funded by DARPA, the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, and initially conceived as a means of interconnecting the American military’s computers across their various regional hubs.

It was Arpanet that really gave birth to the internet, in a moment described below by Leonard Kleinrock. It’s October 1969, three months after man has walked on the moon, and Kleinrock and his colleagues have just connected multiple computers across the U.S.:

We typed the L and we asked on the phone,

Do you see the L?

Yes, we see the L

We typed the O, and we asked, Do you see the O?

Yes, we see the O.

Then we typed the G, and the system crashed…

The course of true innovation never did run smoothly. But these early breakthroughs of the space age were the basis for all that was to follow. While the modern iPhone is now 120 million times more powerful than the computers that took Apollo 11 to the moon, its real power lies in its ability to leverage the billions of websites and terabytes that make up the internet.

A brief analysis of these three research breakthroughs reveals a research web of over 400,000 publications since Apple first published their phone patent in 1997. Add the factor of supporting researchers, funders, universities and companies behind them, and the contributing network is simply awe-inspiring. And we’ve barely scratched the surface. There are countless other research breakthroughs without which the iPhone would not be possible. Some well-known, others less so. Both GPS and Siri had their origins with the U.S. military, while the complex algorithms that enable digitization were initially conceived to detect nuclear testing. All had research at their core.

The iPhone is an era-defining technology. Era-defining technologies do not come from the rare brilliance of one person or organization, but layer upon layer of innovation and decade upon decade of research, with thousands of individuals and organizations standing on each other’s shoulders and peering that bit further into the future. In our age of seemingly insurmountable global challenges, we must not only remember this but be inspired by it.

We must encourage openness and transparency at the heart of research, ensuring it is disseminated as widely, quickly and clearly as possible. We must remember that every delay and distortion matters. Research integrity and reproducibility, transparent peer review, open access, diversity—these are more than just buzzwords. They are exciting steps toward reforming the infrastructure of a global research ecosystem that has always been our best hope for the future.

The views expressed are those of the author(s) and are not necessarily those of Scientific American.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR(S)

Matthew Hayes is the author of «Robert Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis,» published in the journal History. He is director of publisher and funder growth at Publons, the world’s largest peer review platform and a part of Clarivate Analytics. He studied history at Oxford University, has a master’s in international relations from SOAS, University of London, and is currently researching a PhD on global citizenship education at the Institute of Education, University College London.

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iPhone 13 Update: The Evolution of the iPhone — Every Model from 2007–2021

What was the first iPhone? Did it have a camera? How many versions of the iPhone are there? We’ll answer these questions and many more.

What was the first iPhone to come out? When did the first iPhone come out? We have the full history of the iPhone right here through the iPhone 13. This article will cover the evolution of iPhone models throughout the years, and discuss the notable changes made with each release.

Jump To:

iPhone: June 29, 2007

Can you believe 16 GB is all you could put on the original iPhone? Granted, there wasn’t nearly as much data to put on the iPhone yet and certainly no App Store. But you had access to the internet on a screen you could actually see it on, unlike the flip and slider phones of the time. And it could only handle 128 MB of memory. The camera was 2.0 megapixels—so, terrible. But a phone with a camera! Holy moly!

iPhone 3G: July 11, 2008

As far as internal specs go, the iPhone 3G wasn’t much different than the original iPhone. But now there was an App Store! This iPhone got its moniker for its 3G connectivity, which meant access to internet you could actually use without wanting to throw the iPhone across the room.

iPhone 3GS: June 19, 2009

Apple introduced the 32 GB storage option with the iPhone 3GS, doubling it from the first iPhone. Clearly, introducing the App Store changed things quickly. Between photos, music, and apps, 16 GB just wasn’t going to cut it. The camera got an upgrade to 3 MP and added video recording. Apple also added Voice Control, although we’d have to wait a couple more years before the introduction of Siri.

iPhone 4: June 24, 2010

Now we’re getting somewhere. The iPhone 4 was the first iPhone to have a front-facing camera. Little did Apple know, selfies would take over the world. The iPhone 4 also got a Retina display. With 512 MB memory, it was equipped to handle a lot more than even the iPhone 3GS, which only had 256 MB of memory. You can see the technology was beginning to look a little more familiar, but 32 GB was still the maximum amount of storage the iPhone could hold.

iPhone 4S: October 14, 2011

Talk about a huge difference between the iPhone 4 and the iPhone 4S: the camera went from 5 MP to a whopping 8 MP. Now, that’s an upgrade. Apple also introduced the 64 GB storage option but kept the memory at 512 MB. Video could then be recorded in 1080p. Oh, I can’t forget—hello, Siri! Apple sold four million units of the iPhone 4S in its first week.

iPhone 5: September 21, 2012

Apple sold 5 million units of the iPhone 5 in its first week. The camera stayed the same but memory was boosted all the way up to 1 GB. You thought 3G was cool? Psh, the iPhone 5 had LTE connectivity. Hello, internet everywhere! Apple also introduced the Lightning connector with the iPhone 5. And for the first time, the screen got bigger! All previous generations’ displays were 3.5 inches, but the iPhone 5 was 4 inches.

iPhone 5s & iPhone 5c: September 20, 2013

Between the iPhone 5s and the iPhone 5c, Apple sold nine million units in the first week of sales. The iPhone 5c was meant to be slightly more affordable and had a plastic shell. It was available in four different colors, but not too much else was different. The iPhone 5s, on the other hand, introduced Touch ID, dual flash, and slow-motion video. Plus, it included the M7 motion coprocessor, which opened a new realm of possibilities and also helped save battery life.

iPhone 6 & 6 Plus: September 19, 2014

Apple tends to make larger leaps between the original model and the S edition than it does from the S edition to a new model. The iPhone 6’s internal specs were very similar to those of the iPhone 5s. The biggest difference was having a significantly larger screen and offering an even larger size called 6 Plus. The Retina display became HD, and the option to get an iPhone with 128 GB of storage became available. But the amount of memory was the same, and the camera didn’t see a megapixel upgrade. But it didn’t matter—Apple sold 10 million units in the first week.

iPhone 6s & 6s Plus: September 19, 2015

The 6s changed everything. Well, not everything, it basically looked the same. But inside, Apple upgraded the iPhone 6s quite a lot. The camera made a huge leap forward going from 8 MP to 12 MP. The memory was also doubled from 1 GB to 2 GB. After the iPhone 6 had some bending issues (#bendgate), Apple gave the iPhone 6s 7000 series aluminum to make sure that never happened again. Last but not least, 3D Touch was introduced.

iPhone SE: March 31, 2016

Don’t think I’ve forgotten the iPhone SE. It had all the awesome internal specs of the iPhone 6s in a small package and without 3D Touch. But overall, the iPhone SE was introduced as a more affordable option that people really loved.

iPhone 7 & 7 Plus: September 16, 2016

Apple finally dropped the 16 GB base model option, with iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus base models starting at 32 GB of storage and going up to 256 GB. Apple also introduced a new shiny Jet Black color. The iPhone 7 Plus proved to be more popular than previous Plus models due to its new dual camera, which made a significantly improved zoom feature possible, and Portrait mode, a software update that let iPhone 7 Plus users take impressive photos using Depth of Field. Perhaps the most controversial feature of the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus was the one Apple removed: the headphone jack. The new iPhones shipped with EarPods that plugged into the Lightning port and an adaptor for traditional headphones. Apple introduced its wireless AirPods at the same event it announced it was eliminating the headphone jack.

iPhone 8 & 8 Plus: September 22, 2017

The iPhone 8 and 8 Plus introduced us to wireless charging with the glass cover on the back on the iPhone. The camera was awesome, with upgraded tools for editing and filtering our images. The true-tone display improved the viewing experience by automatically reducing blue-light exposure. Users eventually (mostly) got used to not having a headphone jack and began adapting to the wireless lifestyle.

iPhone X: November 3, 2017

Speaking of awesome cameras, the iPhone X included an extra front-facing camera that let us take amazing selfies in Portrait mode. Sure, other iPhones let us take cool-looking photos, but the iPhone X included Portrait mode for the front-facing camera, and we fell in love at first aperture.

iPhone XS & XS Max: September 21, 2018

Skipping right over the iPhone 9, Apple announced the XS and XS Max at its September 2018 event in the Steve Jobs Theater. These models were well named, as they were definite upgrades along the lines of the iPhone X. Both models had the front-facing camera for Portrait-mode selfies. The displays were edge to edge, and it all looked great with the Super Retina HD display. The biggest upgrade might be the smallest; the A12 bionic chip increased the processing power while decreasing battery drain.

iPhone XR: October 26, 2018

The iPhone XR was also announced at the September 2018 event, but wasn’t available right away. Because it was the cheaper of the new models, quite a few people decided to wait for the XR to be available. These iPhones were smaller than the XS and XS Max (but still bigger than the 7 and 8 Plus). The display was not as crisp as the XS and XS Max, but with the Liquid Retina HD display, the difference wasn’t too noticeable. This model also had the front-facing camera and came in way more colors than the XS or XS Max.

iPhone 11: September 20, 2019

The iPhone 11 is the least expensive of Apple’s annual line, but still has enough new features to be in the running for 2019’s most popular iPhone. The device features a 6.1-inch Liquid Retina display, and comes in six crisp colors. The most exciting addition may be the second camera on the back of the 11, both 12 MP, and offering wide and ultra-wide lenses.

iPhone 11 Pro: September 20, 2019

For Apple customers looking for a smaller phone with a top-of-the-line display, the iPhone 11 Pro was perfect. The 5.8-inch Super Retina XDR display was Apple’s most crisp and clear to date. This phone featured not two, but three, 12 MP HDR camera lenses, offering wide, ultra-wide, and telephoto lenses. The color options were more muted than the iPhone 11, but there was always the option to add a flashy case!

iPhone 11 Pro Max: September 20, 2019

Apple’s largest and most expensive phone of 2019 was the iPhone 11 Pro Max. The display was Apple’s Super Retina XDR, as with the 11 Pro, but sized at 6.5-inches. The Pro Max featured the same, three-lens camera setup as the 11 Pro, as well as the same color choices, making size nearly the only difference between the devices.

iPhone SE (second generation): April 24, 2020

The 2020 iPhone SE is the second of its kind, and is loved by those who prefer smaller iPhones. Apple takes a few cues from the past with this throwback iPhone. The 4.7-inch Retina HD display and Home button with Touch ID harken back to the original iPhone SE, and with a similarly low price. The second-generation SE offers many of the features of Apple’s most expensive iPhones, including an A13 Bionic chip, advanced camera system with Portrait mode and Depth Control, high-definition video, wireless charging capability, and long battery life.

iPhone 12 mini: November 13, 2020

The iPhone 12 mini is a surprisingly small but still very powerful addition to the iPhone family. This thin and incredibly light smartphone measures in at just 5.4 inches and includes the new, powerful A14 Bionic chip for a considerable boost in performance over previous models. It also features Apple’s latest Super Retina XDR OLED display and a host of camera upgrades, but still comes with a dual-lens arrangement. The only notable differences between the iPhone 12 mini and the iPhone 12 are that the mini is smaller and has an estimated battery life that’s 2 hours shorter than that of the larger iPhone 12.

iPhone 12: October 23, 2020

The 6.1-inch iPhone 12 has exactly the same features, camera specs, and processing capabilities as the 12 mini, except that it’s estimated to have a 17-hour video playback compared to the iPhone 12 mini’s 15 hours. This mid-range model also includes the dual-lens camera, which is good enough for everyday users. However, Apple did include some impressive upgrades to their higher-end iPhone 12 Pro and Pro Max phones for those who choose their iPhones for their camera capabilities,

iPhone 12 Pro: October 23, 2020

The iPhone 12 Pro boasts some very fancy camera and color upgrades as compared to the 12 and the 12 mini, but comes in the same 6.1-inch screen size as the iPhone 12 and includes all of the baseline features present in the budget models. New camera features introduced in 2020 include a triple-lens arrangement like we saw with the iPhone 11 Pro models, but with LiDAR scanning, improved Night Mode, and enhanced zoom range and lens functions. Both iPhone 12 Pro models include the fastest aperture ever used in an iPhone. Apple has added RAW photos for superior pro editing capability, and has included Dolby Vision up to 60 frames per second in the Pro models.

iPhone 12 Pro Max: November 13, 2020

The iPhone 12 Pro Max, features all of the benefits of the 12 Pro, but with some upgrades and a considerable size difference. The 6.7-inch Pro Max claims an 87 percent improvement on the way it functions in low light over the iPhone 11 models and features 5x zoom, which is a big deal for those who use their iPhones for professional or near-professional photography projects. The most distinguishing characteristic of this iPhone is its screen size.

iPhone 13: September 24, 2021

The iPhone 13 line’s base model maintains many of the design features (re-)introduced in the iPhone 12 series, but comes with a 20 percent smaller notch, accommodated by a new camera layout. It runs on the A15 chip, which is an upgrade over the previous generation of iPhones, and the camera features some significant improvements, including Cinematic mode and Photographic Styles. Battery life is also improved for this model, and it comes in the following colors: pink, blue, midnight, starlight, and PRODUCT(RED). A big selling point for the iPhone 13 is the price point: it starts at the same price as the iPhone 12 did when released, but its base model offers double the storage space. The screen size remains the same at 6.1 inches.

iPhone 13 mini: September 24, 2021

Like its bigger siblings, the iPhone 13 mini runs on Apple’s A15 Bionic chip, making it a powerhouse in a small package. Its battery life has improved up to an hour and a half a day over the iPhone 12 mini. As with other iPhone 13 models, the mini features big camera improvements, and the most storage available of any mini model at a maximum storage capacity of 512 GB. Its design and physical size also largely mirror the iPhone 12 mini, clocking in with a screen size of 5.4 inches. It features the same color options as the iPhone 13 and a starting price of $699 for 128 GB.

iPhone 13 Pro: September 24, 2021

The iPhone 13 Pro features a 6.1-inch Super Retina XDR display with ProMotion, but its big draw is the inclusion of a Telephoto camera, in addition to the Wide and Ultra Wide cameras that come with the iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 mini. It comes with a LiDAR scanner for Night Mode photography and offers a 1 TB model for more storage than any iPhone has ever offered before. It needs it, considering all the new camera features make for pretty bulky file sizes. It is also powered by the A15 chip and comes in silver, graphite, gold, and sierra blue.

iPhone 13 Pro Max: September 24, 2021

The iPhone 13 Pro Max offers everything the Pro does, but bigger. Its screen is the same size as the iPhone 12 Pro Max: 6.7 inchesw diagonally. It, like the rest of the iPhone 13 line, is a bit heavier and thicker than its predecessor, despite sharing the same dimensions otherwise. In addition to getting a chip upgrade to the A15, the iPhone 13 Pro Max also gets an additional GPU, for a total of five. It, too, offers a 1 TB storage capacity option, and Apple says the battery is able to support up to 28 hours of non-stop video playback. With the heftiest pricetag of any iPhone, the iPhone Pro Max is the ultimate top-of-the-line model available.

iPhone Generations to Come

As of fall 2021, there have been a total of 13 series of the iPhone, and most releases included multiple models. Apple has released a total of 33 iPhones over the years, including the latest iPhone 13 line and the iPhone SE (second generation). We’ve given you a complete look at each iPhone evolution, starting when Steve Jobs unveiled the original iPhone in 2007. As you can see, the iPhone has gone through a lot of changes, from a 16 GB web browser to a 1 TB all-in-one camera, workspace, and entertainment center.

In the early days, Apple released one iPhone per year. That gradually changed as the releases of new models got closer and closer together from 2010 to 2013. With the September rollout, though, Apple released both the iPhone 5s and the iPhone 5c, ushering in an era of two iPhone releases per year. 2017, 2018, and 2019 each saw the release of three more iPhone models, and then in 2020 the tech giant shocked the world. Not only did it release the iPhone SE (second generation) in April, the company also rolled out the four iPhones in the 12-series lineup in its delayed fall announcement. At their September 2021 event, Apple revealed the four new phones that comprise the iPhone 13 lineup, the latest phones available from Apple.

Why Did Apple Skip Some iPhone Numbers?

Did you know that there isn’t an iPhone 2? After Apple created the first generation iPhone, the one that came after that was all about 3G internet connectivity, so the iPhone 2 was skipped. Why did Apple skip iPhone 9? Well, there wasn’t an iPhone 9 because Apple went straight to the iPhone X, a decision made based on it being released in the 10th year after the very first iPhone release. Apple is known for doing things its own way, so frankly we’re not surprised.

We loved learning about the history of the iPhone, and we hope you did too! Be sure to check back in and stay up-to-date with all the newest models as the iPhone continues to evolve and grow. If you think it might be time for you to upgrade your iPhone to a newer model, check out our article on how to know when to upgrade your phone.

The Evolution of the iPhone Camera

Did the first iPhone have a camera? It sure did, though not an especially powerful or clear one. Still, it was better than a disposable camera! The first iPhone also gave users access to just 16 GB of storage at most, and 4 GB on the low end. Can you imagine?

The cameras built into iPhones have always been a major draw for the devices, and Apple has shown a company initiative to continue improving upon iPhone cameras with each release. These days, you can enjoy incredible detail and professional-level finishing just with the stock camera and photo editing options included with your iPhone!

We hope this article answers any questions you have about the evolution of phones in Apple’s lineup. This evolution chart will continue to grow over the years, and we’ll be here to keep it updated: from the upcoming iPhone 13 to a hypothetical iPhone 15 and beyond. Maybe in 2027 we’ll even get an iPhone XX! What do you think is coming in the Apple cell phone timeline? Let us know your thoughts and guesses below.

Image Credits: Apple and Youtube / Greg Wyatt

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