History Of Apple iPhone

 ”This is a day I’ve been looking forward to for two and a half years.” The sizeable crowd gathered at the Macworld Expo this January cheered with anticipation as the CEO of Apple, Steve Jobs, initiated what ended up being one of the most successful product announce­ments ever. The product was, of course, Apple’s first foray into the huge and extremely competitive cell phone market. “Today we are introducing three revolutionary products of this class. The first one is a widescreen iPod with touch con­trols, the second is a revolutionary mobile phone and the third is a break­through Internet communications device… These are not three separate devices, this is one device and we are calling it—iPhone. Today Apple is going to reinvent the phone!”The rumour mills have been run­ning wild ever since Apple stepped into the consumer electronics indus­try with the first iPod six years ago. Almost every Macworld after the launch of the iPod has seen a flurry of activity on the internet with iPhone mock-ups by some talented (and other not so talented) Photoshoppers cropping up every­where and every Apple rumour site going crazy with proposed specifications and features. This year, however, it became a huge wave unrivalled by anything that has preceded it. It seeped out of the world of Apple fanatics to the general news websites concern­ing technology. Almost everyday, there used to be an iPhone relat­ed story on the front page of digg. And all this for a device that Apple had not even hinted at. People had started expecting that Apple would not launch a phone just to shock the world.Apple has a great culture of secrecy about: anything they do. Therefore, even the slightest hint of any patent filings or leaks draws a lot of media attention. Apple used this as a leverage to throw the rumour-mongers off course. They filed several fake patents with imaginary features and fantastic diagrams. There was this diagram of an enclosure strongly resembling the iPod Mini and people all over the Internet were suddenly blaspheming the iPhone over its atrocious design. Then there was this patent for a screen that was described in such an outlandish way that it was difficult to imagine what it could actually be like. No one had expected the multi-touch screen, but it is quite clear now what that patent was for.Fans of Apple have been lusting for a mobile phone for a long time and this time, they were really expecting Apple to deliver on their hopes. The Internet was suddenly flooded with Photoshopped images of what the iPhone would be like. It is quite fun to browse through some of these images. Phones of every conceivable shape, size and form emerged in these mock-ups. There were candybar phones, flip phones, sliders, swivel phones, wearable phones, and just plain weird, imaginary, fantasy devices. Some of these concepts were blatant rip-offs of existing design, with the Motorola RAZR phone showing up in various colours and an Apple logo very often. They had the trademark reserved     since     more than  five years. Apple fans and blogs all around the world were effectively shut up when they realised that even if Apple    did    release    a phone, it wasn’t going to be branded  an iPhone.There were controversial statements   with  some people hating the idea ofApple calling their phone the iPhone, and others angered at the prospect of having to address Apple’s rumoured phone withsome other name. Alternative names were gested by people all over the web such as iFone, MacMobile, TelePod, iMobile,PodPhone, iChat Mobile or even iMistake (clearly, this guy wasnot a huge fan of Apple)!If the news of Cisco owning the rights to the iPhone trademark was surprising for people,the announcement of Apple christening their new phone as the iPhone was a total shocker. Steve Jobs had the gall to stand in front of four thousand people and announce a product to the world with a name that was trademarked by another company! Speculation ran high again as people wondered that it wasn’t quite possible that Jobs had made the decision without being absolutely certain thatthey’d win the trademark in some way. If they would have had to rename the phone to something else later and pay Cisco charges for damage, it would have been a humiliation for the company.However, Apple has a history of choosing controversialnames and getting away with them. The name Macintosh was similar to the name of a product of a music company, Mcintosh. Apple should not have gotten the rights to the name because both were pronounced exactly the same, but Apple somehow got the trademark .for the name Macintosh and launched the computer with that name. The Apple name itself has cost Apple a lot of money over the years because it is the name of the record company of The Beatles, Apple Corp. and they have constantly been suing Apple for the past thirty years over various issues. But Apple has now signed a final deal with The Beatles and won complete rights to the name.So, it wasn’t the most surprising thing that Apple was sued by Cisco but kept delaying the case to try and arrive at a settlement outside the court. Finally, on February 21, the news appeared that “Cisco and Apple Reach Agreement on iPhone Trademark”. This is the news in its entirety from Apple’s official Web site: “Cisco and Apple today announced that they have resolved their dispute involving the ‘iPhone’ trademark. Under the agreement, both com­panies are free to use the ‘iPhone’ trademark on their products throughout the world. Both companies acknowledge the trade­mark ownership rights that have been granted, and each side will dismiss any pending actions regarding the trademark. In addition, Cisco and Apple will explore opportunities for interoperability in the areas of security, and consumer and enterprise communications. Other terms of the agreement are confidential.”  All said and done, what matters most is that the phone was launched and it is a wonderful product. The dimensions are 115 x 61 x 11.6 mm or 4.5 x2.4 x 0.46 inch­es and it weighs in at 135 grams. The front is almost entirely occupied by the huge screen, with a tiny speaker above it and a “Home” button below it. It does not flip, slide, or swivel. There is no keyboard or even the number pad; it just has the screen and one large button below it. On the left side, it has a volume rocker and a ring / silent button. On the top, it has a standard 3.5 mm headset jack, a tray for the SIM card, and the Sleep/Wake button. On the bottom, it has the speaker, micro­phone, and the standard 30-pin iPod dock connector. It charges and syncs through the included dock and is compatible with exist­ing iPod docks and almost all third-party accessories available for the iPods. On the back, it has a 2MP camera on the top left corner and the bitten Apple logo.