U.S. Release
On June 28, 2007, during an address to Apple employees, Steve Jobs announced that all full-time Apple employees and those part-time employees that have been with the company at least one year would receive a free iPhone. Employees received their phones in July after the initial demand subsided.
Initially priced at US$ 599 and US$ 499 for the 8 GB and 4 GB models, the iPhone went on sale on June 29, 2007. Apple closed its stores at 2:00 pm local time to prepare for the 6:00 pm iPhone launch, while hundreds of customers lined up at stores nationwide.
Currently, in the U.S. and some other countries it can only be acquired with a credit card precluding a completely anonymous purchase. There is no way to opt out of the data plan. The iPhone at first could not be added to an AT&T Business account, and any existing business account discounts cannot be applied to an iPhone AT&T account, which AT&T changed in late January 2008.
The Associated Press also reported in 2007 that some users were unable to activate their phones because, according to AT&T, "high volume of activation requests were taxing the company's computer servers."
Early estimates by technology analysts estimated sales of between 250,000 to 700,000 units in the first weekend alone, with strong sales continuing after the initial weekend. As part of their quarterly earnings announcement, AT&T reported that 146,000 iPhones were activated in the first weekend. Though this figure does not include units that were purchased for resale on eBay or otherwise not activated until after the opening weekend, it is still less than most initial estimates. It is also estimated that 95% of the units sold are the 8 GB model.
On January 11, 2011, Verizon announced during a media event that it had reached an agreement with Apple and would begin selling a CDMA iPhone 4. The Verizon iPhone went on sale on February 10, 2011. By contrast, T-Mobile USA's inability to provide the iPhone to customers raised its subscription churn rate, put the unit in an "unsustainable position", and contributed to parent Deutsche Telekom's decision to sell it to AT&T in March 2011.
During Apple's official unveiling of the iPhone 4S on October 4, 2011 it was announced that Sprint would begin carrying the reconfigured CDMA iPhone 4 and the iPhone 4S in the US on October 14. Cricket Wireless announced on May 31, 2012, that it would become the first prepaid carrier in the US to offer the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S, beginning June 22, 2012. A week later, Virgin Mobile USA became the second American prepaid carrier to offer the iPhone 4 and 4S, announcing plans to release the phones on June 29, 2012.
On Oct 29, 2007 the Usenet newsgroup misc.phone.mobile.iphone was created.
Read more about this topic: History Of The I Phone
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