50 Fun Facts About IPhone

Which coffee chain did Steve Jobs prank-call on stage at the 2007 unveiling, ordering 4,000 lattes to go?

Starbucks took the prank call during the Google Maps demo, and fans were still ringing that San Francisco store to order 4,000 lattes six years later.

Which Apple marketing chief was mocked for saying it took 'courage' to drop the headphone jack in 2016?

Phil Schiller's line became a meme, but the same jack-less phones also brought the first official water-resistance rating and a solid-state home button.

Apple's first iPhone ad, shown during the 2007 Oscars, had film and TV characters answering phones with which word?

Hello was all the ad said, followed by 'Coming in June', in a montage of 31 clips running from Lucille Ball to Pixar's Mr. Incredible.

What did Apple give every iPhone 4 owner free in 2010 after the 'Antennagate' complaints about lost signal?

A bumper case covered the steel antenna band that lost signal when gripped, and Apple refunded anyone who had already bought one.

The lower-case 'c' in the polycarbonate iPhone 5c of 2013 is widely taken to stand for what?

Color is the accepted reading, though Apple never said so: the iPhone 5c's polycarbonate shell was strengthened by a steel band and came in five bright finishes.

Siri's iPhone 4S debut was overshadowed by Steve Jobs's death, which came how soon after the October 2011 unveiling?

The next day, October 5, 2011, Jobs died, making the iPhone 4S the last Apple product announced in his lifetime.

What did the notorious 2008 App Store app 'I Am Rich', priced at $999.99, actually display when opened?

A glowing red gem and a mantra were all $999.99 bought, and Apple pulled the app less than a day after its release.

Which tech blog paid $5,000 in 2010 for a prototype iPhone 4 that an Apple engineer had lost in Redwood City?

Gizmodo tore the prototype down and published it, and a police task force later raided the home of the editor who reviewed it, seizing his computers.

Which glassmaker's Gorilla Glass replaced the plastic screen Jobs had held up on stage in January 2007?

Corning revived a 1960s 'muscled glass' called Chemcor after Jobs complained that the prototype had scratched in his pocket.

Which 2017 anniversary model skipped a number, dropped the home button and introduced Face ID at a then-record $999?

The iPhone X is pronounced 'ten', marking the tenth anniversary, and it was the first iPhone with an OLED screen.

What did Apple call the 326-pixel-per-inch screen that debuted on the iPhone 4 in 2010?

The Retina display quadrupled the pixel count to 960×640 without changing the 3.5-inch screen size or aspect ratio.

Which reversible connector, announced with the iPhone 5 in 2012, replaced the 30-pin dock plug that iPods had used?

Lightning outlived the iPhone 15's switch to USB-C, surviving on the iPhone SE until that model was discontinued in 2025.

Whose common-charger mandate pushed Apple to give the iPhone 15 a USB-C port in 2023, its first port change since 2012?

The European Union's rule made the iPhone 15 the first to switch ports since the iPhone 5, after Apple had warned the mandate would 'harm consumers'.

What does 'SE' stand for in the name of the 4-inch iPhone that Apple launched at $399 in March 2016?

Special Edition was Apple's answer to the 30 million 4-inch iPhones it said it had sold in 2015, proof that many buyers still wanted compact phones.

What share of app revenue has Apple's App Store kept since 2008, a cut developers and regulators have called excessive?

The 30% cut falls to 15% for developers earning under $1 million a year under a Small Business Program announced in November 2020.

Which game vanished from the App Store in August 2020 after its maker added a way to dodge Apple's payment system?

Fortnite was gone within hours of Epic Games' hotfix, and Epic sued the same day with a video parodying Apple's famous '1984' commercial.

Which US agency did Apple publicly defy in 2016 over an order to unlock a San Bernardino shooter's iPhone 5C?

The FBI had the hearing postponed the day before it was due, then dropped the case a week later after a third party unlocked the phone, which reportedly held nothing about the plot.

Which Taiwanese iPhone assembler, legally Hon Hai Precision Industry, is the world's largest contract electronics maker?

Foxconn also builds the Kindle, PlayStation consoles, the Xbox and every Nintendo system since the GameCube, and earns most of its revenue in China.

Which carrier ended AT&T's exclusive US hold on the iPhone by selling a CDMA model from February 2011?

Verizon's iPhone 4 added a Personal Hotspot for up to five devices, and pre-orders opened on February 3, 2011.

Which payment service launched in 2014 with the first iPhones to carry an NFC chip, initially the chip's only use?

Apple Pay was the NFC chip's sole job for three years, until iOS 11 gave third-party apps limited access to it.

Which video-calling service launched alongside the iPhone 4's first front-facing camera in June 2010?

FaceTime arrived on a phone that also packed the first iPhone gyroscope, a sensor that detects three-axis angular motion.

Which messaging service, the root of the 'green bubble' divide, arrived with iOS 5 in October 2011?

iMessage reached the Mac a year later with Mountain Lion, and it now spans iOS, iPadOS, macOS, watchOS and visionOS.

Which basic text-editing feature did iPhone owners wait two years for, until iPhone OS 3 added it in June 2009?

Cut, copy and paste appeared as a bubble when you press and hold text, in the same update that brought MMS and Spotlight search.

Which magazine named the original iPhone its Invention of the Year for 2007, months after the June launch?

Time's award came as Walt Mossberg called the iPhone 'a beautiful and breakthrough handheld computer' despite 'some flaws and feature omissions'.

Which Microsoft chief dismissed the iPhone in 2007 as the world's most expensive phone, one with no keyboard?

Steve Ballmer said there was 'no chance' the iPhone would win significant market share, and reportedly barred his own family from using one.

Which Apple design chief, until then known for hardware, led the flat redesign that arrived with iOS 7 in 2013?

Jony Ive's iOS 7 swapped textured icons for flat ones and added Control Center, and it reached 200 million devices within five days.

Which head of iOS software left Apple in October 2012, weeks after the troubled launch of Apple Maps?

Scott Forstall's duties were split among four executives, with Craig Federighi taking over iOS engineering, and he has never publicly explained the exit.

Which desktop operating system did Steve Jobs claim the first iPhone simply 'runs' at the 2007 unveiling?

'Runs OS X' was all Jobs would say; one Apple team had shrunk Mac OS X to fit an ARM chip, beating a rival Linux-based version codenamed Acorn.

Which 2009 model, whose 'S' Apple said stood for speed, was the first Apple handset that could record video?

The iPhone 3GS also added voice control and a digital compass, and it sold more than a million units in its first weekend.

Which 2016 model was Apple's first with two rear cameras, gaining an exclusive Portrait mode in iOS 10.1?

The iPhone 7 Plus's second 12-megapixel telephoto lens gave 2× optical zoom, and Portrait mode followed about a month after launch.

How much did a California jury award Apple in 2012 after finding Samsung had copied iPhone patents and trade dress?

The $1.049 billion verdict covered 'bounce-back', tap-to-zoom and rounded-corner patents, and the two sides finally settled out of court in 2018.

Apple admitted in 2017 that iOS slows iPhones with worn batteries to prevent what, in the affair dubbed 'Batterygate'?

Unexpected shutdowns struck when a worn battery could no longer supply peak current, and iOS 11.3 later added a switch to turn the throttling off.

Which Apple chip inside the iPhone 5s was the first 64-bit processor to ship in any smartphone?

The A7's 64-bit Cyclone cores were Apple's own design, and the same chip went into the first iPad Air a month later.

Which Apple chip, launched with the 2017 iPhones, was the first to carry a dedicated 'Neural Engine'?

The A11 Bionic's Neural Engine handles up to 600 billion operations per second for Face ID and Animoji, yet third-party apps could not use it at first.

Which 2005 Motorola handset, built with Apple, was the first phone to run iTunes, sixteen months before the iPhone?

The ROKR E1 arrived on September 7, 2005, from a collaboration between Apple and Motorola that the iPhone made redundant sixteen months later.

Which US body approved a 2010 exemption that made jailbreaking an iPhone legal under the DMCA?

The U.S. Copyright Office approved exemptions in 2010 and 2012, and the first jailbreak tool had appeared within days of the original iPhone's 2007 release.

Which 17-year-old, later famous for hacking the PlayStation 3, was first to free an iPhone from AT&T in August 2007?

George Hotz traded his second unlocked iPhone for a Nissan 350Z and three more iPhones, and Sony later sued him for publishing the PS3's private key.

Which Chinese city hosts the world's largest smartphone production site, a complex nicknamed 'iPhone City'?

Zhengzhou's plant sits in the city's Airport Economy Zone, a site China built up with billions in perks for Apple's assembler.

Which 2015 Sundance comedy-drama, set in Hollywood on Christmas Eve, was shot on three iPhone 5s handsets?

Tangerine's crew used the FiLMiC Pro app, an anamorphic lens adapter and a Steadicam, and the film grossed nearly ten times its tiny budget.

Apple dropped the charger and EarPods from iPhone 12 boxes in 2020, yet by law kept the EarPods in which country?

France requires phones sold for use by under-14s to come with hands-free kit, so French boxes kept EarPods while the rest of the world lost them.

Which satellite operator relays the Emergency SOS texts that iPhone 14 and later models can send with no cell coverage?

Globalstar's satellites pass the message down to ground stations, using L- and S-band spectrum set aside for mobile satellite services.

Apple's $356 million purchase of which fingerprint-sensor firm in 2012 led to Touch ID on the iPhone 5s a year later?

AuthenTec's sensor went inside the home button, and Germany's Chaos Computer Club announced it had bypassed Touch ID within weeks of launch.

Face ID builds on infrared depth sensing from which Israeli firm, bought by Apple in 2013, that also powered the Kinect?

PrimeSense reportedly cost Apple about $350 million, and Face ID's dot projector now throws more than 30,000 infrared points onto a face.

Which maker of the TouchStream multi-touch keyboard did Apple buy in 2005, laying the basis for the iPhone's screen?

FingerWorks was founded by two University of Delaware researchers, and its keyboards were aimed at people with RSI before they became the iPhone's touchscreen.

Which voice actress recorded Siri's original American voice in 2005, unaware of its future use, then went public?

Susan Bennett's claim was confirmed by audio forensics expert Ed Primeau after she revealed her role under growing pressure.

Jobs unveiled the first iPhone as three products in one: a widescreen iPod, a mobile phone and what third device?

The 'breakthrough Internet communicator' was built in a secretive collaboration with Cingular Wireless, which let Apple develop all the hardware and software in-house.

How much store credit did Apple give early buyers after cutting the iPhone's price by $200 two months after launch?

The $100 credit followed 'hundreds of emails' from angry buyers after the price fell from $599 to $399 and the 4 GB model was dropped.

At which San Francisco venue did Steve Jobs unveil the iPhone during his Macworld keynote on January 9, 2007?

Moscone Center hosted the keynote in its West hall, but the phone took until June 29, 2007, to go on sale, at $499 for 4 GB.

Which long-requested ability, letting apps keep running in the background, arrived with iOS 4 in June 2010?

Multitasking shared iOS 4 with app folders, and the update launched alongside the iPhone 4, the first iPhone with a gyroscope.

Which Oscar-winning director shot the 2018 psychological thriller Unsane, starring Claire Foy, entirely on an iPhone?

Steven Soderbergh shot it in secret in June 2017 on a 2016-model iPhone and premiered it at the Berlin International Film Festival.