The genius that is Steve Jobs has definitely taken Apple above and beyond what anyone expected. Today, the company is one of the most valuable in the world and not even the sky seems to be the limit anymore. And yet, there are still a few little anecdotes that we bet you probably didn’t know.
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Here are 5 anecdotes about the iPhone we bet you didn't know!
Why does the iPhone have an ‘i' at the front?
Just like all Apple products (iPad, iMac, iPod), there is a little ‘i' that comes before the word. Steve Jobs has admitted that this little 'i' actually stands for 'internet, individual, instruct, inform, inspire.’
iPad, iPhone, iWatch, iMac… Of course, the ‘i’ fits everywhere!
The iPhone wasn’t originally meant to be a phone!
Steve Jobs asked his engineers to design a 'tactile’ device and the developers didn’t really know what to do. They designed a kind of tablet, which later became the iPad. But Apple’s CEO wasn’t satisfied and said ‘make it into a phone.’ And so the iPhone was born! The same goes for iPods, which had a very strange development process indeed…
Why do all iPhones display 9.41 a.m.?
All promotional images of iPhones seem to show the same time on the iPhone screen: 9.41 a.m. and they have done ever since 2010! The reason for this is simple. At the time, Steve Jobs used to speak a bit too much during his Keynotes which are calibrated and perfectly timed down to the second. However, in 2007, CEO Steve Jobs ended his speech and unveiled the iPhone at 9.42 a.m. and not 9.40 a.m. as was expected and planned. As a result, in advertising and promotional images, the time would always read 9.42 a.m., until 2010 when Jobs unveiled the iPad, exactly one minute earlier at 9.41 a.m. Ever since, the time on Apple products has always been 9.41 a.m.
We design the keynotes so that the big reveal of the product happens around 40 minutes into the presentation. When the big image of the product appears on screen, we want the time shown to be close to the actual time on the audience's watches. But we know we won't hit 40 minutes exactly.
One in seven humans owns an iPhone
It is estimated that 900 million people worldwide have an iPhone. Ever since 2018, Apple hasn't provided its sales figures, but it is a fact that the Apple brand has sold 2.3 billion iPhones. If they keep selling around 200 million units per year as they have been, Apple could very well reach 3 billion iPhones sold in 2021. However, this huge economical record would logically go hand in hand with a terrible environmental record. To produce a current iPhone (model XS), Apple needs to use 12,000 litres of water and the whole process causes as much CO2 to be released as a plane in flight!
It is prohibited to make bombs using an iPhone
When you buy an iPhone, the terms and conditions state that you cannot use the phone for 'the development, design, manufacture, or production of nuclear, missile, or chemical or biological weapons.’
There you have it! By the way, are you planning on buying the new iPhone 12?
