iPhone

▪ electronic device

 a multipurpose handheld computing device combining mobile telephone, digital camera, music player, and personal computing technologies. After more than two years of development at Apple Inc., the device was first released in the United States in 2007. The iPhone was subsequently released in Europe in 2007 and Asia in 2008.

      Apple designed its first mobile “smart” phone to run the Mac OS X operating system, made popular on the company's personal computers (personal computer). The device's most revolutionary element was its touch-sensitive multisensor interface. The touch screen allowed users to manipulate all programs and telephone functions with their fingertips rather than a stylus or physical keys. This interface—perfected, if not invented, by Apple—recreated a tactile, physical experience; for example, the user could shrink photos with a pinching motion or flip through music albums using a flicking motion. The iPhone also features Internet browsing, music and video playback, a digital camera, visual voice mail, and a tabbed contact list. For its innovative design in the handheld computing market, the iPhone was named invention of the year in 2007 by Time magazine.

      The iPhone joined several competing products in the smart phone market, and critics and fans alike noted that it offered few truly original features. The main appeal of the iPhone was its incorporation of intuitive software and a simplified, appealing interface, as well as the capacity to accommodate new user-selected software. More than 100 million applications were downloaded in the first 60 days after Apple opened its online iPhone App Store in 2008. In 2008, only a year after its debut, Apple released a second version of the iPhone that was updated to use third-generation (3G) wireless technology. As with the original iPhone, demand was very high, and the new iPhone 3G sold one million units in the first three days after its introduction.

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