July 11, 2008: The iPhone 3G goes on sale, becoming the first Apple product in history to sell more than 1 million units in its first weekend.
Building on the original iPhone by adding GPS, 3G data and a higher-quality build, the iPhone 3G also coincided with the launch of iOS 2, which introduced push email, turn-by-turn navigation and, most importantly, the App Store.
“iPhone 3G had a stunning opening weekend,” Steve Jobs said in a press release issued eight years ago today. “It took 74 days to sell the first 1.0 million original iPhones, so the new iPhone 3G is clearly off to a great start around the world.”
Alongside its hardware and software upgrades, one of the big advantages of the iPhone 3G was its price. Retailing at $199, it was a massive 60 percent cheaper than the $499 starting price of the original iPhone.
This helped trigger the massive surge in sales of the iPhone, dwarfing the relatively modest success of the first generation handset. By comparison, last year’s iPhone 6s sold 13 million units in its opening weekend.
Did you own an iPhone 3G? Leave your comments, memories and fond (or not so fond) reminiscences below.
