Apple IPhone smart phone

Apple is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California that designs, develops, and sells consumer electronics, computer software, and online services. The company's hardware products include the iPhone smart phone, the iPad tablet computer, the Mac personal computer, the iPod portable media player, the Apple smart watch, and the Apple TV digital media player. Apple's consumer software includes the macOS and iOS operating systems, the iTunes media player, the Safari web browser, and the life and work creativity and productivity suites. Its online services include the iTunes Store, the iOS App Store and Mac App Store, Apple Music, and iCloud.

Apple was founded by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne in April 1976 to develop and sell personal computers. It was incorporated as Apple Computer, Inc. in January 1977, and was renamed as Apple Inc. in January 2007 to reflect its shifted focus toward consumer electronics. Apple is the world's largest information technology company by revenue, the world's largest technology company by total assets and the world's second-largest mobile phone manufacturer, by volume, after Samsung In November 2014, Apple became the first U.S. company to be valued at over US$ 700 billion in addition to being the largest publicly traded corporation in the world by market capitalization The company employs 115,000 full-time employees as of July 2015 and maintains 478 retail stores in seventeen countries as of March 2016. It operates the online Apple Store and iTunes Store, the latter of which is the world's largest music retailer. Consumers use more than one billion Apple products worldwide as of March 2016.

Apple's worldwide annual revenue totaled $233 billion for the fiscal year ending in September 2015. This revenue accounts for approximately 1.25% of the total United States GDP. The company enjoys a high level of brand loyalty and, according to Inter brand's annual Best Global Brands report, has been the world's most valuable brand for 4 years in a row with a valuation in 2016 of $178.1 billion. The corporation receives significant criticism regarding the labor practices of its contractors and its environmental and business practices, including the origins of source materials.

At the Mac world Conference & Expo in January 2007, Steve Jobs introduced the long-anticipated iPhone, a convergence of an Internet-enabled smart phone and iPod. The first-generation iPhone was released on June 29, 2007 for $499 (4 GB) and $599 (8 GB) with an AT&T contract. On February 5, 2008, it was updated to have 16 GB of memory, in addition to the 8 GB and 4 GB models. It combined a 2.5G quad band GSM and EDGE cellular phone with features found in handheld devices, running scaled-down versions of Apple's Mac OS X (dubbed iPhone OS, later renamed IOS), with various Mac OS X applications such as Safari and Mail. It also includes web-based and Dashboard apps such as Google Maps and Weather. The iPhone features a 3.5-inch (89 mm) touch screen display, Bluetooth, and WI-Fi (both "b" and "g").

A second version, the iPhone 3G, was released on July 11, 2008 with a reduced price of $199 for the 8 GB version and $299 for the 16 GB version. This version added support for 3G networking and assisted-GPS navigation. The flat silver back and large antenna square of the original model were eliminated in favor of a glossy, curved black or white back. Software capabilities were improved with the release of the App Store, which

provided iPhone-compatible applications to download. On April 24, 2009, the App Store surpassed one billion downloads. On June 8, 2009, Apple announced the iPhone 3GS. It provided an incremental update to the device, including faster internal components, support for faster 3G speeds, video recording capability, and voice control.

At the Worldwide Developers Conference on June 7, 2010, Apple announced the redesigned iPhone 4. It featured a 960x640 display, the Apple A4 processor, a gyroscope for enhanced gaming, a 5MP camera with LED flash, front-facing VGA camera and Face Time video calling. Shortly after its release, reception issues were discovered by consumers, due to the stainless steel band around the edge of the device, which also serves as the phone's cellular signal and Wi-Fi antenna. The issue was corrected by a "Bumper Case" distributed by Apple for free to all owners for a few months. In June 2011, Apple overtook Nokia to become the world's biggest smart phone maker by volume. On October 4, 2011, Apple unveiled the iPhone 4S, which was first released on October 14, 2011. It features the Apple A5 processor and Siri voice assistant technology, the latter of which Apple had acquired in 2010. It also features an updated 8MP camera with new optics. Apple began a new accessibility feature, made for iPhone Hearing Aids with the iPhone 4S. Made for iPhone Hearing Aids feature Live Listen, it can help you hear a conversation in a noisy room or hear someone speaking across the room. Apple sold 4 million iPhone 4S phones in the first three days of availability.

On September 12, 2012, Apple introduced the iPhone 5. It has a 4-inch display, 4G LTE connectivity, and the upgraded Apple A6 chip, among several other improvements. Two million iPhone were sold in the first twenty-four hours of per-ordering and over five million handsets were sold in the first three days of its launch. Upon the launch of the iPhone 5S and iPhone 5C, Apple set a new record for first-weekend smart phone sales by selling over nine million devices in the first three days of its launch. The release of the iPhone 5S and 5C was the first time that Apple simultaneously launched two models.

A patent filed in July 2013 revealed the development of a new iPhone battery system that uses location data in combination with data on the user's habits to moderate the handsets power settings accordingly. Apple is working towards a power management system that will provide features such as the ability of the iPhone to estimate the length of time a user will be away from a power source to modify energy usage and a detection function that adjusts the charging rate to best suit the type of power source that is being used.

In a March 2014 interview, Apple designer Jonathan Ive used the iPhone as an example of Apple's ethos of creating high-quality, life-changing products. He explained that the phones are comparatively expensive due to the intensive effort that is used to make them:

We don't take so long and make the way we make for fiscal reasons. Quite the reverse. The body is made from a single piece of machined aluminum. The whole thing is polished first to a mirror finish and then is very finely textured, except for the Apple logo. The chamfers smoothed-off edges are cut with diamond-tipped cutters. The cutters don't usually last very long, so we had to figure out a way of mass-manufacturing long-lasting ones. The camera cover is sapphire crystal. Look at the details around the sim-card slot. It's extraordinary!

On September 9, 2014, Apple introduced the iPhone 6; alongside the iPhone 6 plus that both have screen sizes over 4-inches. One year later, Apple introduced the iPhone 6S, and iPhone 6S Plus which introduced a new technology called 3D Touch, including an increase of the rear camera to 12 MP, and the Face Time camera to 5 MP. On March 21, 2016, Apple introduced the iPhone SE that has a 4-inch size last used with the 5S and has the same internal hardware as the 6S.

IPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus were introduced on September 7, 2016. On September 7, 2016, Apple introduced the iPhone 7 and the iPhone 7 Plus, which feature improved system and graphics performance, add water resistance, a new rear dual-camera system on the 7 Plus model, and, controversially, remove the 3.5 mm headphone jack.