Apple’s launch event will take place tomorrow, i.e., late Wednesday night. According to reports, the company may launch the iPhone 18 Pro, Pro Max, and Ultra. But before the new iPhone, let’s learn the story of the name and the phone that changed the world of mobile phones in nearly two decades. You will be surprised to know that the name ‘iPhone’ did not originally belong to Apple. The American networking company Cisco held the trademark for this name. After Apple launched the iPhone, Cisco also filed a case against the company. Later, the two companies reached an agreement and agreed to use the iPhone name. However, Cisco had sold phones using Wi-Fi and VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) technology under the iPhone name. Another interesting fact is that the world’s most expensive iPhone was sold for nearly $15 million, which is approximately ₹142 crore in today’s currency. It was customized by British designer Stuart Hughes. It featured 135 grams of 24-karat gold and 600 white diamonds. A 24-karat black diamond was placed in place of the home button. But the story of the iPhone is much bigger than just a name and an extremely expensive model. About two decades ago, Apple introduced a phone that changed the very way mobile phones were used. This is how the story of the iPhone began January 9, 2007, Steve Jobs was standing on a stage in San Francisco. He had a new device in his hand. Jobs described it as a combination of three things-a mobile phone, a touch-enabled iPod, and an internet communication device. This was the first iPhone. At that time, it had no 5G, no App Store, no Face ID, and no AI. But its 3.5-inch touchscreen changed the way phones were operated. Phones began to be operated by tapping, swiping, and pinching. The need for buttons and keypads was eliminated. It also changed the way the internet was used. Before the iPhone, the internet used on phones was called ‘WAP’. On it, websites looked very poor and broken. With the help of its Safari browser, Apple for the first time showed real websites on mobile exactly as they appeared on a computer. The first iPhone hit the market in June 2007 and sold 1 million units in just 74 days. At that time, perhaps no one would have thought that this small device would become Apple’s greatest strength in the coming years. Nearly two decades later, the story of the iPhone is now at another major turning point. Steve Jobs is no more. Tim Cook is also no longer the CEO. Now, the reins of Apple are in the hands of John Ternus. He was appointed CEO of Apple on September 1, 2026. He has been working at Apple for about 25 years. Despite being extremely expensive, more than 3 billion iPhones have been sold worldwide so far. Of these, more than 2.5 billion are active. In 2018, this number was around 1.3 billion. That means an increase of about 1.2 billion in just 8 years. Tomorrow, i.e., September 9, is Apple’s launch event. Now the question is, in which direction will the iPhone go during Ternus’s tenure? To understand the answer to this question, we must first look back. Chapter-1 Engineers had started disappearing suddenly In the year 2004-05, something strange was happening at Apple’s office. Some of the company’s most capable engineers suddenly started disappearing from their regular work. Even the people working with them did not know where they were going or what they were doing. Actually, Apple had rented a separate building in Cupertino and set up a secret lab there. Selected engineers were sent to this very lab. The doors remained closed. There were no fixed shifts for work. The engineers were engaged in this project day and night. Many times, they would even eat and sleep there. The name of this entire project was – ‘Purple’. For nearly two and a half years, this project was kept completely confidential. Then came January 9, 2007… Steve Jobs took the stage at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. He held a new device in his hand and presented it to the world. That was when the secret behind the disappearance of those Apple engineers was revealed. The project they had been working on day and night for all those years was-the iPhone. Chapter-2 When a phone was no longer just a phone When Apple introduced the first iPhone in 2007, big names like Nokia and BlackBerry were already present in the smartphone world. Most phones used to have buttons and keypads. Apple asked-why is a keypad needed? Let’s make the phone’s screen the keypad itself, and that is where the story changed. The first iPhone had a 3.5-inch touchscreen. It did not have a keypad, but instead featured a 2-megapixel camera, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and an internet connection. The special thing was that the entire screen became the way to operate the phone. You could tap with your finger, swipe on the screen, and zoom in or out on photos using two fingers. Today, these things seem completely normal to us, but at that time, this way of operating a phone was quite new. This was the iPhone’s first major innovation. The phone became a small computer operated by the gestures of our fingers. The 4GB model was priced at $499 and the 8GB model at $599. Chapter-3 App Store arrived for the first time; the screen became clearer The biggest drawback of the first iPhone was that it didn’t have an App Store. You couldn’t download new apps of your choice. The iPhone 3G, released in 2008, addressed this shortcoming. It came with 3G, GPS, and the App Store, which started with over 800 apps. It took 74 days to sell 1 million units of the first iPhone, but the iPhone 3G achieved this figure in just three days. Now, the iPhone was no longer just a phone; it had become a platform on which developers could build apps. In 2010, Apple launched the iPhone 4. It featured a Retina display for the first time. The 3.5-inch screen had 960×640 pixels and a density of about 326 pixels per inch. This meant that for the first time, the phone’s screen looked so clear that while reading, it felt as if the letters were printed on paper. The iPhone 4 also came with a 5-megapixel camera, HD video recording, and FaceTime for video calls. Its impact was also visible in sales. Within just three days of its launch, 1.7 million iPhone 4 units were sold. Chapter-4 The passing of Steve Jobs, command in the hands of Tim Cook In 2011, Steve Jobs resigned as the CEO of Apple and passed away shortly after. Now, the command of the company was in the hands of Tim Cook. During Jobs’ time, the question was: what new to create? But the challenge before Cook was: how to take the iPhone to millions of people around the world? Cook strengthened Apple’s supply chain and production. A major impact of this was seen in 2014, when Apple launched the large-screen iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus for the first time. Along with it came Apple Pay, meaning the iPhone was no longer just a phone, but also a means to store money and make payments. The market immediately accepted this change. In the first three days, more than 10 million units of both models were sold. In 2015, the iPhone 6s was released, which featured 3D Touch and Live Photos. More than 13 million units of this were also sold in the first three days. Chapter-5 Home button gone, becomes the new identity of camera phones Then came 2017, on the tenth anniversary of the iPhone, Apple launched the iPhone X. This time, the company removed its oldest identity-the home button. It was replaced by a 5.8-inch OLED screen, and for the first time, the Face ID feature was introduced. Now, there was no need to press a button to unlock the phone; you just had to look at it. For this, the TrueDepth camera would create a 3D map of the face. Now, the iPhone’s next big battle was about the camera. In 2019, the iPhone 11 introduced Night mode and an ultra-wide camera. The phone was no longer just taking pictures with a camera; its processor and software were working together to enhance the images. In 2007, the iPhone had said, “Make the phone like a computer.” By 2019, it was saying, “Make the computer inside the phone so powerful that it transforms the camera as well.” Chapter-6 Entry into the world of 5G for the first time In 2020, amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, Apple launched the iPhone 12. For the first time, 5G arrived on the iPhone. The internet became faster, and video streaming and online gaming improved. But the real change was inside the phone. It featured the A14 Bionic chip, which increased the iPhone’s speed. Along with it was a 16-core Neural Engine, which helped in performing tasks like AI and machine learning directly on the phone. The iPhone had now become faster. And more powerful. Now the question was – what could it do that no other phone had done before?
Now the future story of the iPhone is in the hands of John Ternus. John Ternus’s 25-year association with Apple John Ternus is a mechanical engineer who studied at the University of Pennsylvania. He joined Apple in 2001. Before joining Apple, he worked at ‘Virtual Research Systems’ for four years. He started at Apple at a very basic level. After beginning with Mac screen design, he gradually became the top officer of the company’s hardware team. According to the company, under Ternus’s leadership, work was done on durability, better materials, and easily repairable designs for Mac, iPhone, AirPods, and other hardware. He has seen the Jobs era at the company and has also worked with Tim Cook. There will be four challenges before John Ternus References and Further Readings…
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