History of the iPhone
The history of the iPhone development by Apple Inc. spans from the early 2000s to about 2010. The first iPhone was released in 2007. By the end of 2009, iPhone models had been released in all major markets.
For a timeline of iPhone devices, see List of iPhone models.Genesis of iPhone[edit]
The idea of an Apple phone came from Jean-Marie Hullot, a software engineer from NextStep, and later, MacOS.[1] Initially, making an Apple phone was not favored by CEO Steve Jobs, but eventually Hullot was able to convince him. The first team was created in Paris; however, it was not until a few years later that he took the project more seriously: the French engineers were asked to work back in the US, but Hullot declined and resigned from Apple with his team.[2] Another engineer, Henri Lamiraux,[3] became the new head of the project with Scott Forstall,[4] to develop the iPhone software.[5]
Initial development[edit]
Initially, the iPhone started from a conflict between Steve Jobs and his brother-in-law working at Microsoft,[6] then convinced by a French high-level engineer,[7] Jean-Marie Hullot, working for Apple France[8] to do so. The project within Apple Inc. for developing the iPhone began with a request in 2004 from CEO Steve Jobs to the company's hardware engineer Tony Fadell, software engineer Scott Forstall and design engineer Sir Jonathan Ive[9] to work on the highly confidential "Project Purple".[10][11]
While pitting two teams of engineers led by Fadell and Forstall, Jobs decided to investigate the use of touchscreen devices and tablet computers (which later came to fruition with the iPad).[12][13][14][15] Jobs ended up pushing for a touch-screen device that many have noted has similarities to Apple's previous touch-screen portable device, the Newton MessagePad.[16][17][18][19] Like the MessagePad, the iPhone is nearly all screen. Its form factor is credited to Apple's Chief Design Officer, Jonathan Ive.[14][20]
Jobs expressed his belief that tablet PCs and traditional PDAs were not good choices as high-demand markets for Apple to enter, despite receiving many requests for Apple to create another PDA. In 2002, after the iPod launched, Jobs realized that the overlap of mobile phones and music players would force Apple to get into the mobile phone business. After seeing millions of Americans carrying separate BlackBerrys, phones, and Apple's iPod MP3 players; he felt eventually consumers would prefer just one device.[21]
Jobs also saw that as cell phones and mobile devices would keep amassing more features, they will be challenging the iPod's dominance as a music player. To protect the iPod new product line, which by the start of 2007 was responsible for 48% of all of Apple's revenue,[22] Jobs decided he would need to venture into the wireless world.[21] So at that time, instead of focusing on a follow-up to their Newton PDA, Jobs had Apple focus on the iPod. Jobs also had Apple develop the iTunes software, which can be used to synchronize content with iPod devices. iTunes had been released in January 2001.[23][24][25][26]
Several enabling technologies made the iPhone possible. These included lithium-ion batteries that were small and powerful enough to power a mobile computer for a reasonable amount of time; multi-touch screens; energy-efficient but powerful CPUs, such as those using the ARM architecture; mobile phone networks; and web browsers.[27] Apple approached glass manufacturer Corning in 2005 to investigate the possibility of a thin, flexible, and transparent material that could avoid the problem of metal keys scratching up phone screens. Corning reactivated some old research material that had not yet found an application to produce Gorilla Glass.[27]
Beta to production and announcement[edit]
The iPhone beta was created in 2004 to test the device and its functions. The beta version enabled Apple to develop the phone's capabilities before launching a final product. While it may technically have been the first iPhone that was created, it was never released to the public, so it has not been considered the first iPhone.[28]
In an effort to bypass the carriers, Jobs approached Motorola. On September 7, 2005, Apple and Motorola collaborated to develop the Motorola ROKR E1, the first mobile phone to use iTunes. Steve Jobs was unhappy with the ROKR, among other deficiencies, the ROKR E1's firmware limited storage to only 100 iTunes songs to avoid competing with Apple's iPod nano.[29][30] iTunes Music Store purchases could also not be downloaded wirelessly directly into the ROKR E1 and had to be done through a PC sync.[21] Apple therefore decided to develop its own phone, which would incorporate the iPod's musical functions into a smartphone.[31]
Feeling that having to compromise with a non-Apple designer (Motorola) prevented Apple from designing the phone they wanted to make,[32] Apple discontinued support for the ROKR in September 2006, and, after creating a deal with AT&T (at the time still called Cingular), released a version of iTunes that included references to an as-yet unknown mobile phone that could display pictures and video.[33] This turned out to be the first iPhone (iPhone 2G).
On January 9, 2007, Steve Jobs announced the first iPhone at the Macworld convention, receiving substantial media attention.[34] On June 11, 2007, Apple announced at the Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference that the iPhone would support third party applications using the Safari engine. Third parties would be able to create Web 2.0 applications, which users could access via the Internet.[35] Such applications appeared even before the release of the iPhone; the first of these, called OneTrip, was a program meant to keep track of users' shopping lists.[36]
On June 29, 2007, the first iPhone was released.[37] The iPod Touch, which came with an iPhone-style touchscreen to the iPod range, was also released later in 2007. The iPad followed in 2010.[31]
Intellectual property[edit]
Apple has filed more than 200 patent applications related to the technology behind the iPhone.[100][101]
LG Electronics claimed the design of the iPhone was copied from the LG Prada. Woo-Young Kwak, head of LG Mobile Handset R&D Center, said at a press conference: "we consider that Apple copied Prada phone after the design was unveiled when it was presented in the iF Design Award and won the prize in September 2006."[102] Conversely, the iPhone has also inspired its own share of high-tech clones.[103]
On September 3, 1993, Infogear filed for the U.S. trademark "I PHONE"[104] and on March 20, 1996, applied for the trademark "IPhone".[105] "I Phone" was registered in March 1998,[104] and "IPhone" was registered in 1999.[105] Since then, the I PHONE mark had been abandoned.[104] Infogear trademarks cover "communications terminals comprising computer hardware and software providing integrated telephone, data communications and personal computer functions" (1993 filing),[104] and "computer hardware and software for providing integrated telephone communication with computerized global information networks" (1996 filing).[106]
In 2000, Infogear filed an infringement claim against the owners of the iPhones.com domain name.[107] The owners of the iPhones.com domain name challenged the infringement claim in the Northern District Court of California. In June 2000, Cisco Systems acquired Infogear, including the iPhone trademark.[108] In September 2000, Cisco Systems settled with the owners of iPhones.com and allowed the owners to keep the iPhones.com domain name along with intellectual property rights to use any designation of the iPhones.com domain name for the sale of cellular phones, cellular phones with Internet access (WAP PHONES), handheld PDAs, storage devices, computer equipment (hardware/software), and digital cameras (hardware/software). The intellectual property rights were granted to the owners of the iPhones.com domain name by Cisco Systems in September 2000.
In October 2002, Apple applied for the "iPhone" trademark in the United Kingdom, Australia, Singapore, and the European Union. A Canadian application followed in October 2004, and a New Zealand application in September 2006. As of October 2006, only the Singapore and Australian applications had been granted.
In September 2006, a company called Ocean Telecom Services applied for an "iPhone" trademark in the United States, United Kingdom, and Hong Kong, following a filing in Trinidad and Tobago.[109] As the Ocean Telecom trademark applications use exactly the same wording as the New Zealand application of Apple, it is assumed that Ocean Telecom is applying on behalf of Apple.[110] The Canadian application was opposed in August 2005, by a Canadian company called Comwave who themselves applied for the trademark three months later. Comwave has been selling VoIP devices called iPhone since 2004.[108]
Shortly after Steve Jobs' January 9, 2007, announcement that Apple would be selling a product called iPhone in June 2007, Cisco issued a statement that it had been negotiating trademark licensing with Apple and expected Apple to agree to the final documents that had been submitted the night before.[111] On January 10, 2007, Cisco announced it had filed a lawsuit against Apple over the infringement of the trademark iPhone, seeking an injunction in federal court to prohibit Apple from using the name.[112] In February 2007, Cisco claimed that the trademark lawsuit was a "minor skirmish" that was not about money, but about interoperability.[113]
On February 2, 2007, Apple and Cisco announced that they had agreed to temporarily suspend litigation while they held settlement talks,[114] and subsequently announced on February 20, 2007, that they had reached an agreement. Both companies will be allowed to use the "iPhone" name[115] in exchange for "exploring interoperability" between their security, consumer, and business communications products.[116]
On October 22, 2009, Nokia filed a lawsuit against Apple for infringement of its GSM, UMTS and WLAN patents. Nokia alleges that Apple has been violating ten Nokia patents since the iPhone initial release.[117] This and further lawsuits by Nokia were eventually settled.[118][119][120]
In December 2010, Reuters reported that some iPhone and iPad users were suing Apple Inc. because some applications were passing user information to third-party advertisers without permission. Some makers of the applications such as Textplus4, Paper Toss, The Weather Channel, Dictionary.com, Talking Tom Cat and Pumpkin Maker have also been named as co-defendants in the lawsuit.[121]
In August 2012, Apple won a smartphone patent lawsuit in the U.S. against Samsung, the world's largest maker of smartphones;[122] however, on December 6, 2016, SCOTUS reversed the decision that awarded nearly $400 million to Apple and returned the case to Federal Circuit court to define the appropriate legal standard to define "article of manufacture" because it is not the smartphone itself but could be just the case and screen to which the design patents relate.[123]
Legal battles over brand name[edit]
In Mexico, the trademark iFone was registered in 2003 by a communications systems and services company, iFone.[124] Apple tried to gain control over its brand name, but a Mexican court denied the request. The case began in 2009, when the Mexican firm sued Apple. The Supreme Court of Mexico upheld that iFone is the rightful owner and held that Apple iPhone is a trademark violation.[125]
In Brazil, the brand IPHONE was registered in 2000 by the company then called Gradiente Eletrônica S.A., now IGB Eletrônica S.A. According to the filing, Gradiente foresaw the revolution in the convergence of voice and data over the Internet at the time.[126] The final battle over the brand name concluded in 2008. On December 18, 2012, IGB launched its own line of Android smartphones under the tradename to which it has exclusive rights in the local market.[126] In February 2013, the Brazilian Patent and Trademark Office (known as "Instituto Nacional da Propriedade Industrial") issued a ruling that Gradiente Eletrônica, not Apple, owned the "iPhone" mark in Brazil. The "iPhone" term was registered by Gradiente in 2000, seven years before Apple's release of its first iPhone. This decision came three months after Gradiente Eletrônica launched a lower-cost smartphone using the iPhone brand.[127] In June 2014, Apple won, for the second time, the right to use the brand name in Brazil. The court ruling determined that the Gradiente's registration does not own exclusive rights on the brand. Although Gradiente intended to appeal, with the decision Apple can use freely the brand without paying royalties to the Brazilian company.[128]
In the Philippines, Solid Group launched the MyPhone brand in 2007. Stylized as "my|phone", Solid Broadband filed a trademark application of that brand. Apple later filed a trademark case at the Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines (IPOPHL) against Solid Broadband's MyPhone for "confusingly similar" to the iPhone and that it may likely "deceive" or "cause confusion" among consumers. Apple lost the trademark battle to Solid Group in a 2015 decision made by IPO director Nathaniel Arevalo, who also reportedly said that it was unlikely that consumers would be confused between the "iPhone" and the "MyPhone". "This is a case of a giant trying to claim more territory than what it is entitled to, to the great prejudice of a local 'Pinoy Phone' merchant who has managed to obtain a significant foothold in the mobile phone market through the marketing and sale of innovative products under a very distinctive trademark", Arevalo later added.[129][130]
