2007 iPhone and iOS

Riding the wave of the iPod release, Apple set out to – once again – disrupt the way in which consumers used their devices. While it wasn’t the first smartphone on the market, it was clearly the best of its time and to this day, each new iteration is wildly successful in terms of number of units sold.

Steve Jobs led the development of the iPhone along with a team of 1,000 Apple employees who started work on the device in 2004. “Project Purple” as it was referred to, saw secretive collaboration between Apple (who wanted – and received – full creative control over the production and implementation) and AT&T (then Cingular Wireless). At a cost of $150 million and thirty months of development time, the iPhone was announced at Macworld 2007, and released on June 29, 2007.