Apple model A1203. Internal name iPhone1,1. Announced January 9, 2007. Sold June 29, 2007. This is the first iPhone, the one with no home-button circle worn through, no 3G, and no App Store on day one. In the photo it sits next to the fingerwheel from a Western Electric 500-series rotary set so the scale is honest: a century of telephone design, two objects, one job.
Steve Jobs told Macworld the device was three products: a widescreen iPod with touch controls, a revolutionary mobile phone, and a breakthrough Internet communicator. Then he said it was one device. Multi-touch replaced the keypad. A single physical button went home. The rest of the front was glass. That was the break from every StarTAC, BlackBerry, and Treo on the table.
People lined up. Apple Stores and AT&T shops had overnight camps on June 28-29. Some waited more than a day. The first units walked out just after 6 p.m. local. That line is part of the artifact. A telephone had not drawn a sidewalk queue like that in this country.
U.S. launch, two-year AT&T (formerly Cingular) contract required:
Exclusive to AT&T in the United States. Mini-SIM. Quad-band GSM voice. Data was EDGE, not 3G. Wi-Fi 802.11b/g is how it actually felt fast. Discontinued July 2008 when the iPhone 3G arrived at $199 / $299.
What it did not have in June 2007: copy and paste, MMS, GPS, 3G, a front camera, a hardware keyboard, and a store for native apps. Web apps were the official third-party story until the SDK and App Store in July 2008.
The DynaTAC put the telephone in a hand. The StarTAC put it in a pocket. The iPhone put a general-purpose computer behind glass and made the carrier a pipe. Capacitive multi-touch, a full browser, visual voicemail, and a home screen of icons became the template every other maker copied within two years. About six million first-generation units sold before the 3G replaced it. The industry still lives inside that rectangle.
The Western Electric 500 set (1950s-80s) is the analog telephone most Americans actually used. The fingerwheel is roughly three inches across. Next to A1203 it is the before picture: ten holes, a spring, and a pulse train. No computer. No line at midnight. Same human need - talk to someone who is not in the room.