July 12, 2010: The iPhone 4 suffers a major blow when respected trade publication Consumer Reports says it can’t, in good faith, recommend the new Apple smartphone.
The reason the magazine refuses to give its vaunted “recommended” label to the previously top-ranked device? A little Apple scandal called “Antennagate.”
June 16, 2010: Apple reports a massive surge of interest in the iPhone, with a massive 600,000 pre-orders placed for the iPhone 4 on its first day.
The number is “far higher” than Apple expected, and at the time is the largest number of pre-orders Apple has ever taken in one single day. AT&T suffers server problems thanks to the demand — with 10x the usual traffic on its website. It’s proof positive that Apple is onto a winner!
April 20, 2010: A day after the most high-profile iPhone leak in history, Gizmodo dissects a prototype iPhone 4, publishing the teardown and showing the world exactly what’s inside the soon-to-be-released device.
The iPhone 4 prototype, accidentally left in a bar by 27-year-old Apple software engineer Gray Powell, quickly becomes the biggest story in the tech world.
And that’s where the trouble begins.
It’s no secret that Apple loves to keep products secret, but thanks to a new leak we can now see the crazy lengths the company goes to just to keep prototype iPhones under wraps.
Notorious Apple leaker Sonny Dickson has put out some new images of an ugly iPhone case allegedly used by Apple to keep the iPhone 6s secret. From the outside it doesn’t look like much, but there are a bunch of tiny details that help Apple keep features from leaking.
February 3, 2011: The iPhone finally arrives on Verizon Wireless, the United States’ largest carrier, ending nearly four years of exclusivity with AT&T.
The move comes at a time when Apple is being pressured to expand its customer base in response to the growing popularity of Android. The deal commences with the iPhone 4 being made available for pre-order by Verizon’s 93 million customers.
Apple’s iPhone empire has been made possible thanks to the magic of aluminum. But under certain circumstances, Jony Ive’s favorite metal can be the iPhone’s worst enemy.
The folks behind the YouTube channel Backyard Scientists decided to see what happens when you dunk the iPhone in molten aluminum. Seeing the iPhone get a Terminator 2 type of death is oddly beautiful.
Check it out:
The design of the iPhone 7 is awfully disappointing to Apple fans who were hoping for a major change this year, but there’s still a way to get all of the new device’s features into a totally different form factor.
All it takes is a giant saw and an industrial sanding belt and you’ll be on your way to getting the sleek straight edge frame of the iPhone 4. YouTuber PeripateticPandas created a new video showing the full process that will give you the most unique looking iPhone 7 in the world.
Check it out:
Apple hasn’t always left users waiting until September to get their paws on the latest iPhone. Back on June 7, 2010, Steve Jobs took to the stage at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference to introduce the iPhone 4.
These days, with the iPhone 4 no longer capable of running the latest version of iOS, it’s easy to look back on the fourth-generation handset as a piece of ancient tech. In fact, the device was incredibly significant: The iPhone 4 introduced some very important features — and also addressed concerns that are still important today.
Check out Steve Jobs unveiling the iPhone 4 below.
You can’t think about Apple without thinking about great design. The two go hand-in-hand, thanks to the company’s incredible ability to churn out hit products that make billions of dollars one after the other, year after year.
But Apple’s design team isn’t perfect. There have been some missteps over the years, and it seems like they’ve become more common under Tim Cook. Its design has also become predictable; even before we get a new product, we have a good idea what it will look like.
Are we worrying about nothing, or is it time Apple invited some fresh blood into Jony Ive’s lair? Join us in this week’s Friday Night Fight between Cult of Android and Cult of Mac as we fight it out over this and more!
Michael Fassbender is a lot of things: actor, producer, Magneto … but one thing he isn’t is on the cutting edge of technology.
The man playing Steve Jobs in the upcoming biopic from director Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire) confessed in a recent interview that he is a little behind the times, phone-wise.
