Sealed, Original First-Generation 2007 iPhone Sold For Rs 28 Lakhs
An untouched, sealed-box first-generation 2007 iPhone was sold at auction in the US for $35,000 (almost 28 lakh). At the Macworld conference in San Francisco on January 9, 2007, then-Apple CEO Steve Jobs revealed the iPhone, a touchscreen mobile phone featuring an iPod, camera, and web surfing capabilities, among other things.
The phone had a touchscreen, a web browser, a 2MP camera, and visual voicemail. In June 2007, the iPhone was made available in the US for $499 for the 4GB edition and $599 for the 8GB version, both of which required a two-year contract. According to ZDNet, the fully loaded original iPhone (8GB) has already been sold for $35,414 at an auction.
As per according to the auction house RR Auction, the iPhone box has a life-size representation of the iPhone with 12 buttons on the screen. The item was part of the “Apple, Jobs, and Computer Hardware” curated sale by RR Auction, which finished on August 18 and had over 70 things up for bid.
A hand-soldered Apple-1 circuit board made by Steve “Woz” Wozniak, the other co-founder of Apple, was also offered for auction and fetched $677,196. The rumor also mentioned the sale of an unopened 5GB first-generation official Apple iPod for $25,000. The iPhone 14 range will be unveiled on September 7, together with other products and devices from Apple.
Specifications of the Apple iPhone 14
A new model over the P30 pro, a better camera, and other upgrades will be part of the iPhone 14 series. To fit the unique internals, the iPhone 14 Pro and apple 14 Pro Max are reportedly rumored to have a more extensive profile and a better camera module.
A triple-camera rear system with a 48MP wide, 12MP super duper and telephoto lens would be included in both iPhone 14 Pro variants. The new iPhone 14 range would be able to play 8K videos.
The Apple iPhone 14 Pro variant will include a 120hz rate display and 8GB of RAM. However, a 128GB storage option exists for the iPhone 13 series smartphones. Analysts anticipate that the iPhone 14 class handsets will include 64GB of primary storage.
The gadget had a better quality touchscreen, a web browser, a 2MP camera, and visual voicemail. In June 2007, the iPhone was made available in the US for $499 for the 4GB version and $599 for the 8GB version, both of which required a two-year contract.
According to the auction house RR Auction, the iPhone box has a life-size representation of the smartphone with 12 buttons on the screen.
The item was part of the “Apple, Jobs, and Hardware” curated sale by RR Auction, which finished on August 18 and had over 70 things up for bid. A hand-soldered Apple-1 circuit board made by Steve “Woz” Wozniak, the other co-founder of Apple, was also offered for auction and fetched $677,196.
The rumor also mentioned the sale of an unopened 5GB first-generation official Apple iPod for $25,000. On September 7, Apple will introduce the iPhone 14 range with other gadgets, including a new lineup of the Apple Watch series.
The iPhone 14 Pro is anticipated to cost $1,099 (about Rs 88,000), up $100 from the cost of the iPhone 13 Pro, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman. Other recent sources said the base variant’s price could begin at Rs 79,900.
In the meantime, Apple plans to introduce the iPhone 14 series in the first week of September along with other gadgets and goods. According to Mark Gurman of Bloomberg, the Cupertino-based corporation may release its new products on September 7. Existing new iPhones have seen price reductions on the e-commerce sites Amazon and Flipkart before the launch.
After a 17% drop from its original price, the iPhone apple 13 is sold on Amazon for a reduced price of 65,999. On Flipkart, the iPhone 11 is similarly priced at 41,999. The smartphone is now available for 15% less than its original list price of 49,900.
The original iPhone, which went on sale to consumers on June 29, 2007, lacked many of the features we now take for granted in an iPhone, but it laid the groundwork for Apple’s future development, which is still in place today.
In many ways, the first-generation iPhone was distinct from the models in use today. It was slight, measuring only 4.5 by 2.4 inches to start. In contrast, the 2018 iPhone XS Max measures 6.2 feet by 3.05 inches.
Additionally, it had no third-party applications at all, and its maximum flash capacity was 16GB. The initial iPhone was only available from AT&T and only supported their notoriously sluggish and unreliable EDGE network.
However, the first iPhone was highly significant with all of its flaws compared to today. During a period when the company’s only portable product was the iPod, it represented Apple’s foray into a new category.
The touchscreen made its debut with the iPhone and would quickly become a norm in the market. Reputable manufacturers have previously offered smartphones, but they had smaller screens and physical keyboards.
There were many skeptics when the iPhone first came out. In an interview at the time, then-Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer stated that the iPhone had “no opportunity” of dominating the smartphone market.
Ballmer said to USA Today in April 2007: “There’s no possibility that the iPhone will win any substantial market share. None at all. It costs $500 but is subsidized. They might succeed financially. However, if you look at the 1.3 billion phones sold, I’d rather have our software in 60%, 70%, or 80% of them than 2% or 3%. That’s what Apple might get. In 2016, Ballmer acknowledged to Bloomberg that he had been mistaken and that Windows 10 had entered the smartphone market too late.
Even Ballmer had company. Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie, the then-CEOs of BlackBerry manufacturer Research in Motion, watched the iPhone’s introduction in shock.
Lazaridis correctly noted that “these lads are good,” based on a Wall Street Journal excerpt from “Losing the Signal,” a book regarding RIM’s rise and fall, while Balsillie stated (less correctly) that “it’s OK— we’ll be fine.”
The media also contained skeptics. The iPhone will fail, according to a Techcrunch contributor. Engadget has compiled customers’ concerns about the phone as of right now, and AdAge anticipates that it will also be a failure.
The adoption of touchscreens on Apple products was apparently something Steve Jobs had in mind as early as 2005. Apple decided to create its phone to merge the musical features of the iPod into a smartphone after the Motorola ROKR, a smartphone that included iTunes, proved unsuccessful.
On January 9, 2007, Apple unveiled the iPhone at the Macworld conference in San Francisco.
Jobs said during the keynote, “This is the day I have been looking toward for two and a half years.” The Motorola Q, the Finger Treo, the Nokia E62, and the BlackBerry were the top smartphones at the time, and he disparaged them in favor of his invention.
Jobs stated, “They all have these keypads that are there regardless of whether you need them, and they all have these limits buttons that are corrected in plastic and are identical for each implementation. “We’re heading to remove these buttons and put a huge screen in their place.”
Edited by Prakriti Arora
